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The Supreme Court rulings that made marriage equality a reality for many same-sex couples and struck down an Arizona law that made it harder to register to vote were important civil rights victories. But, they obscure our highest court’s rightward shift.
Consider this: In recent years, the Supreme Court has turned corporate treasuries into campaign slush funds for CEOs, demolished campaign finance laws, aided and abetted pay discrimination, made it much harder for consumers and workers to file class action lawsuits against corporations that have cheated them, and kindly delivered the White House to one lucky Republican from Texas (who, in turn, helped to create today’s far-right Supreme Court majority).
Just this year, the Court found new ways to make it more difficult for working people to sue their employers for employment discrimination and for consumers to join together in class action lawsuits. It also destroyed the most important enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act, which for almost half a century made it possible for millions of Americans to cast votes without having to overcome enormous obstacles on the way to the ballot box.
Study after study has found that the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Roberts and his predecessor William Rehnquist, has swerved hard to the right, systematically favoring corporate interests over workers, consumers, and voters. Former Justice John Paul Stevens, a moderate Republican placed on the Supreme Court by Gerald Ford, observed in 2007 that in his three decades on the court, nearly every justice who retired had been replaced by someone who leaned further to the right.
By the time Stevens retired, he was seen as a staunch liberal. His views hadn’t shifted to the left, but the justices around him had shifted far to the right.
Despite all this, Americans still perceive the Supreme Court as a liberal institution.
A new USA Today poll finds that many more Americans think the Supreme Court is “too liberal” than think it’s “too conservative.” Thirty-one percent of those polled thought the Court leans too far to the left, versus 21 percent who thought it was too far right and 37 percent who thought it was “about right.”
The Supreme Court’s rightward lean, paired with the public’s misperception that it in fact leans left, is no accident. For decades, right-wing leaders have worked in popular culture to attack the courts as liberal bastions while successfully organizing to dominate and control legal institutions to create courts that no longer look out for the rights of all Americans.
A perfect example of public confusion is the reaction to the Supreme Court’s narrow decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. While the final outcome of the case was good news for supporters of universal, affordable health care, Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion was undergirded by remarkably conservative legal theory.
Along with the other four conservatives on the court, Roberts laid the groundwork for restricting the ability of the federal government to solve national problems under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause — harkening back to the Gilded Age era when the Supreme Court routinely struck down protections for workers and consumers as unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court’s narrow majority in two key marriage equality cases this year rightly got plenty of attention. But we shouldn’t let conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy’s fair-mindedness on one issue hide the fact that he often sides with a conservative majority in one of the most right-leaning courts in American history. | <urn:uuid:b1e10d4f-7a73-49d8-bc61-38c369903752> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://otherwords.org/swerving-to-the-right/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959263 | 709 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Key: "S:" = Show Synset (semantic) relations, "W:" = Show Word (lexical) relations
Display options for sense: (gloss) "an example sentence"
- S: (v) shrivel, shrivel up, shrink, wither (wither, as with a loss of moisture) "The fruit dried and shriveled"
- S: (v) flinch, squinch, funk, cringe, shrink, wince, recoil, quail (draw back, as with fear or pain) "she flinched when they showed the slaughtering of the calf"
- S: (v) shrink, reduce (reduce in size; reduce physically) "Hot water will shrink the sweater"; "Can you shrink this image?"
- S: (v) shrink, contract (become smaller or draw together) "The fabric shrank"; "The balloon shrank"
- S: (v) shrink, shrivel (decrease in size, range, or extent) "His earnings shrank"; "My courage shrivelled when I saw the task before me" | <urn:uuid:7607d86b-875b-4c3d-afb8-01cd9d2c5480> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&o0=1&o8=1&o1=1&o7=&o5=&o9=&o6=&o3=&o4=&s=shrink&i=0&h=000000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00103-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906813 | 237 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Ekain Cave, Guipscoa, Basque Country
César. González Sainz &
Roberto Cacho Toca
Department of Historical Science, University of Cantabria
Cueva de Ekain contains one of the most interesting groups of cave art on the Cantabrian coast, not so much for the number of figures it has, but above all for the exceptional artistic quality of many of its paintings, and the good state of conservation of the art and its surroundings inside the cave. It is located on the eastern slopes of Ekain hill, very close to the village of Cestona, belonging to the municipality of Deba, in Guipscoa. The Goltzibar and Belioso brooks surround the hill, and they unite a few meters away from the cave, and form the Sastarrain rivulet, which flows into the River Urola at Cestona.
The cave is not very far from the present coast line, just seven kilometers away in a straight line. However, at the time when the cave was decorated, the accumulation of ice in the immense glaciers that existed then, resulted in a lowering of sea level. In the Cantabrian region, this meant that the coastline receded over seven kilometers to the north during the coldest periods. In any case, the cave's archaeological deposit has relatively little evidence of shell fishing. Cueva de Ekain is not an isolated site; in its surrounding area other significant Upper Paleolithic deposits are known, with particularly important occupations of the Magdalenian period (16,500 to 11,500 BP approximately). They are in the caves of Ermittia, Erralla, Urtiaga and Altxerri, and the last of these also has an important group of parietal engravings and paintings. They were used occasionally by the human populations who lived in this eastern part of the region, and whose subsistence was based on hunting red deer and ibex, and sometimes other species of ungulates, the fishing of salmon and trout in the rivers, and gathering vegetables, or shell-fish and other animals on the shore.
Cueva de Ekain was known to the people in the village of Sastarrain, when A. Albizuru and R. Rezabal discovered the cave art in June 1969. It was a small cave only thirteen meters long and barely two meters wide. To the right of the entrance, some boulders blocked a small opening, and when they pulled these boulders out, they were able to enter a new, larger passage, and find the splendid panel full of paintings of horses. They immediately informed Jos Miguel de Barandiaran of their discovery, and this well-known Basque archaeologist and ethnologist visited the cave the following day.
The Paleolithic cave paintings were soon studied and published by J. M. de Barandiaran, together with J. Altuna. Later, in 1978, a second, larger and more complete study was carried out by J. Altuna and J. M. Apellániz. Besides, a magnificent study was made of the archaeological deposit in the vestibule by a team from the Aranzadi Science Society at San Sebastián. They had excavated the deposit, and were able to document frequent occupations of the site, especially during the Magdalenian, when the paintings were produced, and in the later Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic periods.
Like most of the caves in the center and east of the Cantabrian region, Cueva de Ekain was formed in Cretaceous limestone of the Urgonian facies. It is a fairly small cave, consisting basically of a main passage a little over 100m long, with a few short side-passages. The entrance, which faces east, divides into two passages. The one on the left, which was known before 1969, is where the archaeological dig was carried out. The passage on the right leads to the inner decorated parts of the cave.
The first signs of cave art are found in a small side-passage, which has a simple black line. A little higher up, on the left-hand wall, we can see a large horse's head, also painted in black. A few meters further on, another side-passage on the left is known by the Basque name of Auntzei, or "Place of the Goats". The left-hand wall of this passage has a pair of engravings representing a stag and a hind; and then a salmon, and an ibex viewed from the front, as well as other lines which are hard to interpret. These are all painted in black. The opposite wall has at least one more depiction of an ibex, with its body in profile, and its head turned to face the spectator. These figures of ibex are represented therefore in a very common posture in real life, and one that was very familiar to the Paleolithic artists, who systematically hunted herds of ibex from Ekain during the Magdalenian. The posture is repeatedly depicted in Upper Paleolithic mobiliary and cave art, in such sites as Otero in Cantabria and Ker de Massat in Arige.
Returning to the main passage, we reach the central chamber, and a horse painted in black as a very simple outline figure, with proportions that are not too naturalistic. The greatest densities of figures are located at the back of this chamber, and several successive panels have depictions of bison, horses and other non-figurative motifs around a large block of stone. They announce the main compositions in Cueva de Ekain, situated on both sides of the next section of the main passage, called Zaldei or "Place of the Horses".
Each part of the chamber must be considered in turn. First, the block at the back of the central chamber has a magnificent whole bison, where the natural shape of the rock was used to represent its cervical-dorsal line and tail. Other figures of bison and horses are found nearby.
The best-known panel in Ekain is found on the right-hand side of Zaldei chamber, on a large oblique section of wall. It has an accumulation of a dozen horses, with four bison, a hind, an ibex and a fish, apparently a sole. A further bison has been seen recently, whose outline was scraped very superficially over some of the painted horses, so this should be added to the total number of figures mentioned above. The first impression the panel makes on visitors, after their initial amazement, is that it is a scenic composition, representing a herd of horses, with a few other animals on the edges of the scene. Several factors help to create this feeling in the spectator. Nearly all the horses are facing in the same direction, towards the back of the cave, and with a few exceptions, they are all similar in their size, compository scheme, and stylistic conventions. The other animals appearing around the edge of the panel, outside the central composition, are drawn in a much simpler way.
The opposite wall has further panels, which again contain a few bison, and above all horses. They are all very similar to some of the figures in the main panel, although two of these horses seem to be wounded with spears.
Ten meters from the panel of the horses, we find that the low roof of the passage has, on its left-hand side, two figures of brown bear together, one of which is acephalous. Both animals were painted in black, and the larger one is also engraved in its cervical-dorsal area. Like the example of the pairing of an engraved stag and hind, seen in the first part of Ekain, this is a composition of two animals in clear association, and in this case, of one of the least common species in cave art.
Practically at the end of the main passage, another group of animal figures includes horses again, as there are six examples, and engraved lines, arranged in non-figurative vertical and parallel series. Some of the horses in this area also have spears in their bodies. The art finishes at the very end of the passage, with engravings that, with many, very reasonable doubts, have been interpreted as possibly incomplete depictions of rhinoceros.
The central and final areas of Cueva de Ekain therefore contain a group of Paleolithic art, with several aspects which need to stressed. The figures are mostly paintings, and engraving was used only for two animal figures, a few series of non-figurative lines, or to indicate the profiles and other details of certain of the paintings in black or, less often, in red. In this way, Ekain is different from other sites, where the techniques are more balanced, such as Cueva de Altxerri, one of the nearest examples temporally and geographically. And it is similar to sites like Santimamiñe, or Las Monedas, Covaciella and El Covarón, which have even fewer engravings and are presumably closer in their Magdalenian chronology.
Black paint is clearly predominant over red, as happens in many Magdalenian sites. It was applied with procedures ranging from simple lines, to color wash extended totally or partially over the figure, in order to shape the different parts of their bodies. Above all, different procedures were used in the same figures; sometimes in two colors, the bichrome figures, or in any color or in both together with engraving.
The animal figures, and particularly certain of the horses, were painted with great naturalism. It is therefore frequent to find manes, eyes and nostrils, lines of the withers, ventral "M"-shaped lines separating areas of the horse's coat with different coloring, stripes on the upper parts of the limbs, and hairs on the under-belly. But some interesting features do not seem to fit in with this supposed desire for realism of the artists. For example, the forequarters of many of the horses were worked much more, and show more details and more precise techniques, than the rear-quarters, which are often simple sketches. The exaggerated size and prominence of the croup and rump of the horses is equally characteristic. This hypertrophy is conventional, and similarly found in sites in the western Pyrenees (Cueva de Sinhikole) and in central and eastern areas of the Cantabrian region (Santimamiñe, and the Lower Passage of La Garma).
The art left by Magdalenian artists in Ekain is of great interest from the iconographic point of view. It contains 71 depictions, mostly animals: 33 horses, 11 bison, 4 ibex, 2 hinds, 1 stag, 2 fish (salmon and possible sole), 2 possible backs of very doubtful rhinoceros, and a few series of lines. The figures are clearly polarized between horses and bison, with few complementary animals, such as hinds, which are so common in other Cantabrian sites. Conventionalized abstract signs are absent, just as in other caves that were decorated in middle or late Magdalenian phases, such as Covaciella, Las Monedas, Santimamiñe and Altxerri, but in contrast with Cullalvera and Pindal. It is also interesting that the composition in the main central panel is the same, but inverted, as on the roof of Altamira, in the central panel in Santimamiñe, or in Covaciella. That is to say that here horses appear to play the role that was taken by bison in the other sites; and not only in the number of figures, but also in their degree of completeness and realism. In all the caves mentioned, the degree of completeness is greater in the most numerous animal, whether that is bison, or horses as in Ekain.
The characters that we have described allow the art of Cueva de Ekain to be attributed to A. Leroi-Gourhan's Style IV (from 16,000 to 11,500 BP), and it is likely that it was produced during the middle or late Magdalenian, at some time between 13,500 and 12,000 years before the present.
- Altuna, J., Apellániz, J. M. 1978: Las figuras rupestres paleolticas de la cueva de Ekain (Deva, Guipzcoa). Munibe 30, 1-3.
- González Sainz, C.; Cacho Toca, R.; Altuna, J. 1999: Una nueva representación de bisonte en la cueva de Ekain (Pais Vasco). Munibe 51, pp 153-159.
Muse Digital Archiving Frontiers
2-1, Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Tel:03-3464-6927 Fax:03-3476-2372
Copyright reserved by Texnai, Inc. and IPA, 1998,1999,2000,2001,2002 | <urn:uuid:e2eeca70-5e52-48d5-bc7c-2d0a91ba511c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.muse.or.jp/spain/eng/basco/ekain/ekain_top.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959392 | 2,736 | 2.828125 | 3 |
- Static Electricity
- Positive and Negative Charges
- Energy is a property of many substances and is associated with electricity.
Energy is transferred in many ways (Standard B.3.1)
Prior knowledge & experience:
Students should already know what atoms are and the parts of an atom
Holding a balloon up the wall, what happens if you let go? Now, after rubbing the balloon against wool, what happens to the balloon when you let go?
The first balloon should fall, the second balloon should stick to the wall
Common misconception is that balloons are not sticky, therefore they shouldn't be able to stick to a wall.
- Blow up a balloon and hold it up to a wall. The balloon should fall to the ground when you let go.
- Rub that same balloon against wool, or your hair, or a student's hair.
- Take that balloon and again hold it up to the wall. It should now stick to the wall where you held it.
- You could also hold the balloon up to a slow stream of water from a faucet. Do not let the balloon touch the water, but get it pretty close. The water will start to bend away from the balloon.
Photographs and Movies
Static Electricity-- By: Science Made Simple
PHET Demonstration of Static Charges | <urn:uuid:a2a496f4-2382-45dd-8e08-9cc893ae4d8b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://sites.google.com/site/sed695b3/projects/discrepant-events/static-electricity--katie-flanagan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923268 | 271 | 3.796875 | 4 |
Kimberly Ann Elliott
Trade has long been an effective way to move millions of people out of poverty around the world. The Obama Administration views trade as a critical component of an integrated approach to development policy.
—Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Fact Sheet, December 2011
The rhetorical link between trade and development is strong, but the reality leaves something to be desired. On paper, the world’s poorest countries receive preferential access to the U.S. market; in practice, many do not. The United States is rightly praised for giving Haiti preferential access for most of its exports and for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which provides eligible poor countries duty-free access for everything but sugar, peanuts, and a few other products. But least developed countries (LDCs) in Asia—including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, and Yemen—are effectively excluded from U.S. preference programs. In 2010, three-quarters of dutiable exports from AGOA countries received preferential treatment while only 0.7 percent of imports from Asian LDCs did. And the average tariff on the remaining AGOA exports was 0.3 percent (mostly oil); the average tariff on Asian LDC exports was 15 percent.
Elsewhere, things are different. The European Union phased out restrictions on sugar and rice in 2009 and fully opened its market to exports from all LDCs. In 2011, it changed the rules governing product origin to ensure they are not de facto barriers. Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland also provide duty-free, quota-free market access to LDCs. Canada and Japan retain restrictions on sensitive agricultural products (and Japanese leather products) but still reach 98 percent product coverage or better. At the G-20 summit in Cannes, China announced that it would open its markets to 97 percent of products for LDCs with whom it has diplomatic relations.
American excuses for not improving market access for all LDCs range from the impact on the Doha Round of international trade negotiations to lost jobs in the United States and Africa. These excuses, however, do not stand up to scrutiny. On the first, U.S. negotiators insisted for years that they could only agree to the LDC market access initiative as part of an overall Doha Round agreement. But LDC access was never going to be “bound” as part of the agreement, and it could not be a bargaining chip since the LDCs were not being asked to open their markets as part of the bargain. The utter lack of progress at the December 2011 World Trade Organization ministerial meeting effectively marks the end of the Doha Round and should be the end of any linkage with the LDC market access initiative.
Second, despite the small size of LDC exporters—collectively they account for just over one-half of one percent of nonoil U.S. imports—U.S. policymakers are concerned about the potential impact on American jobs. Rigorous empirical research, however, suggests that opening the U.S. market to all LDCs could provide significant benefits to those countries at little or no cost to American workers, including those in the textile industry. Also, Asian LDCs compete more with other Asian exporters, especially China, than they do with American producers, further limiting the negative impact of improved access.
Another concern is that expanded market access for all LDCs would harm AGOA-eligible exporters. Two of the Asian LDCs, Bangladesh and Cambodia, are significant clothing exporters (though both pale in comparison to China); removing tariffs on their exports could mean increased competition for AGOA beneficiaries. Paul Collier, for example, argues that sub-Saharan Africa needs to be shielded from competition with other developing countries if it is to stimulate its manufacturing sector.
There is an argument for spreading the benefits of LDC preferences by putting some restrictions on other exporters, but the restrictions should apply only for competitive LDC exporters, perhaps those accounting for 2 percent or more of total U.S. imports in a sector. And, if a major aim is to protect AGOA beneficiaries, then the focus should be on specific items they export. Because African clothing exports are highly concentrated, it would be possible to shelter 70 percent of AGOA-eligible exports by exempting just two dozen clothing items (at the detailed, 10-digit tariff line level) from LDC preferences for competitive exporters. That would provide benefits for more than half of Bangladeshi and Cambodian exports, both of which are above the 2 percent threshold in clothing, and would give other Asian LDCs an opportunity to access the U.S. market.
The United States could also improve the AGOA program. It could provide additional benefits to African LDCs by emulating the EU initiative and providing access for all products, including sensitive agricultural commodities. That would mean, for example, that Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia would gain access for their currently excluded sugar, peanut, and tobacco exports. In addition, extending the AGOA program is important because it provides regional benefits for lower income countries that are not designated as LDCs. While the overall program is scheduled to expire in 2015, a key eligibility rule for clothing exports expires at the end of 2012 and. Extending both of those indefinitely, and as soon as possible to avoid uncertainty, should be part of any package providing improved trade preferences for LDCs.
With the Doha Round dead if not buried, the United States has no excuse for not acting on its rhetoric and providing improved market access for all of the world’s least developed countries. It is true that Bangladesh and Cambodia are efficient producers, but the fact is that their clothing exporters have created hundreds of thousands jobs for poor, mostly female, workers. Moreover, they are still among the poorest countries in the world, as are Nepal and other Asian LDCs. A reasonable compromise is possible that expands trade benefits for poor countries, protects existing African exporters, and poses little or no threat to American workers. President Obama should ask Congress to act on it in 2012.
Kimberly Elliott, “Opening Markets for the Poor: Are We There Yet?” CGD Working Paper 184 (Washington: Center for Global Development, 2009); “China’s Zero-Tariff Treatment Gains Wide Acclaim,” China Daily USA, November 24, 2011,
Antoine Bouët, David Laborde, Elisa Dienesch, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, “The Costs and Benefits of Duty-Free, Quota-Free Market Access for Poor Countries: Who and What Matters,” CGD Working Paper 206 (Washington: Center for Global Development, 2010).
Kimberly Elliott, “Reviving AGOA,” CGD Brief (Washington: Center for Global Development, 2010).
Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done About It (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
For more details on the problem and potential solutions, see Kimberly Ann Elliott, “Breaking the Deadlock on Market Access for Least Developed Countries,” prepared for the 2011 Trade and Development Symposium (Geneva: International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, December 2011), available at | <urn:uuid:b6a70a53-fd49-4ada-9880-e0c8b72e1f39> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cgdev.org/doc/full_text/OpeningMarkets/Elliott_Opening_markets.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941927 | 1,508 | 2.828125 | 3 |
1.) Find a number between 0 and 2pi such that the angle of 0 radians in standard position is coterminal with an angle of -(23pi/3) radians in standard position.
2.) Provide the exact value of sec -(7pi/3)
3.) if the terminal side of an angle of t radians in standard position passes through the point (-2,3), then find the following values: tant t, csc t, and cost t.
4)Express as a single real number (cos -2pi/3 - 1)^2
7. A wheel is 5.4 feet in diameter and rotates at 1700 rpm
A.) what is the angular speed of the wheel?
B.) How fast is a point on the circumference of the wheel traveling in feet per minute? in miles per hour? | <urn:uuid:114a0705-fffe-41a3-88db-bff2320161fb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/pre-calculus/31368-i-need-help-my-pre-calc-worksheet.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.818803 | 178 | 3.1875 | 3 |
| The earliest picture of a spectrometer I have found
is this cut from Hauksbee and Whiston's Course of Lectures, ca.
The liquid-filled glass prism was fixed in position, and the light admitted through the cross-shaped aperture on the left arm. The eye looks through a sighting tube on the end of the right-hand arm. Provision is made for slow-motion drive screws at I and K.
A. Two-arm Spectrometers
|The basic spectrometer has a light source S illuminating a slit that acts as an object for lens C. This produces a parallel beam of light illuminating the prism P. After refraction by the prism, the light is focussed by lens O on cross-hairs R. The eyepiece lens E is then used to examine the various images of the slit in the various colors present in the source. The cut is from Wm. S. Franklin and Barry MacNutt, Light and Sound (Bethlehem, PA, 1909)||
|This large, unmarked spectrometer is at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. It dates from ca. 1900, and appears to have been equipped with a holder for a diffraction grating at some later date. Student-type spectrometers like this one have been in common use since 1900, although computer-based devices are beginning to take their place. Verniers allow the angular positions of the arm to be read to the nearest minute or two.|
| This incomplete spectrometer at Denison is by John
Browning of London. The prism clamp can be clearly seen and the collimating
arm exists, but the telescope has been lost over the years. This is not surprising:
eyepieces and small reading telescopes were useful adjuncts around a physics
department, and were often borrowed. Many physics departments used to have
a small cardboard box filled with eyepieces that had come adrift from their
This instrument is listed at $38 in the 1888 Queen Catalogue of Instruments for Physical Optics; the cut clearly shows how the arms are threaded into their holders.
|This small, unmarked spectroscope at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio has lost its eyepiece. The telescope tube can be adjusted through a small angular range with a tangent screw.|
The spectrometer below is in the Museum at St. Patrick's College at Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. It was made by Adam Hilger of London, stands on its own trolley, and the divided circle has a diameter of 45.7 cm. It was used by Walter Hartley (1846-1913) for his research on the spectra of elements. In 1883 he established that the relationships exist between the wavelengths in the spectrum of an element and its position in the periodic table.
|This Max Kohl spectroscope at the University of Vermont rather resembles Jamin's Divided Circle in its overall form. The 1912 Kohl catalogue that I consulted at Vermont noted that 'the Goniometer can be used horizontally and vertically. It is used for more accurate experiments on reflection, refraction and colour-dissipation, for determining the angles of prisms and refractive indices by Fraunhofer's, Meyerstein's or Listing-Abbe's Method, as a Goniometer and Spectrum Apparatus. Height, 50 cm; diameter of circle, 55 cm. The apparatus is graduated in two degrees." The price was £18, corresponding to about $100.|
| The spectrometer on the right is in the
Birr Science Centre on loan from the Galway physics department.
The spectrometer was made by Max Kohl of Chemnitz, Germany, and came equipped with a 14438 line per inch diffraction grating ruled by Rowland of Johns Hopkins University on a blank figured by Brashear.
The apparatus is listed at 725 marks in the Kohl catalogue published ca. 1900.
The two-arm spectrometer at the left is in the apparatus collection at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York.
Inside the light-tight cover is a diffraction grating.
It is unmarked, but the style of the feet suggests that it was made about 1900.
B. Three-Arm Spectrometers
|"To study spectra... physicists employ instruments called spectroscopes. [The cut at the left] represents one of these. The flame of a gas lamp is placed in the axis of a lens to which the light penetrates through a narrow slit; the slit and lens forming what is called the collimator. The slit being in the focus of the lens, the light passes through the prism in a parallel beam. The light which passes through the refractive medium is made to work an image of the slit is made to form an image of the slit at the focus of another lens, which image is examined by an eyepiece. This arrangement, which is a great improvement on that adopted by Fraunhofer, is due to an English optician of great celebrity, Mr. Simms." (From Amédée Guillemin, The Forces of Nature, Third Edition, trans. by Mrs. Norman Lockyer (MacMillan and Co., London, 1877), pp 327-328|
| A present-day user of a spectrometer employs
a diffraction grating; if the grating spacing of the grating is known with
precision the wavelengths may be obtained directly from the angle at which
the particular lines appear.
For most of the nineteenth century the typical spectroscope used a prism to separate the spectral lines. Calibration was obtained by projecting the lines of a known spectral source onto the same plane as the unknown lines.
The diagram at the right, from Franklin and MacNutt,
| The Queen spectrometer at the right in
in the collection of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Apart from a small
difference in the top of the column, it appears to be close to Queen's New
Laboratory Spectroscope, listed at $35.00 in the 1888 Queen Catalogue of
Instruments for Physical Optics.
The catalogue notes that "We believe that this spectroscope supplies a want long felt, and that it will be of great service for student's use to save larger and finer instruments in the laboratories of many universities. The extremely low price at which it is furnished brings it within the reach of all."
The Queen spectrometer at the left is approximately the same as the one at the right above.
It is at Westminster College in western Pennyslvania. It has suffered the fate of many older spectrometers and has lost its eyepiece.
The unmarked spectrometer at the left, below, is in the collection of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. At the right is a Societie Genovoise spectrometer at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania
The spectrometer below was at the Science Centre at Birr Castle in Birr, County Offaly, Ireland when I photographed it in September 2000. A year earlier I had seen it at the collection at the physics department at the National University of Ireland, Galway. It is described as "Instrument similar to Original Bunsen and Kirchhoff spectroscope -- Mahogany trapezoid with three brass legs. Housing has hinged lid and both are blackened on the inside; circular prism table, revolved with brass handle below; brass tapering cylindrical telescope and collimator; slit adjusted with small knob -- three holes on housing for reference prism..." in Charles Mollan, Irish National Inventory of Historic Scientific Instruments (Samton Limited, Dublin, 1995), pg 362. The third arm, used to project the image of the linear scale, projects to the rear. A hollow glass prism for holding liquid samples is to its left.
C. One Arm Spectrometers (Direct-Vision Spectrometers)
D. Multiple-Prism Spectrometers
| The two-prism spectrometer by John Browning of
London produces twice the dispersion as one using a single prism. The 1888
Queen Catalogue of Instruments for Physics Optics lists this spectrometer
at $78, and notes that the two prisms are of "extra dense glass."
This instrument is in the Garland Collection of Classic Physics Apparatus at Vanderbilt University, and was probably purchased ca. 1875.
The spectrometer at the left is a wavelength spectrometer; the rotating dial in the middle allows one to dial up a specific wavelength. Exit and entrance slits are controlled by the rotating rings on the ends of the instrument. Inside is an equilateral, triangular prism; from the relatively gentle bend in the case it can be seen that the deviation of the incoming light is relatively small.
The instrument was made by Billingham and Stanley, Ltd. of London, and is in the Greenslade Collection.
| The spectrometer on the left was built
by John A. Brashear of Allegeny, Pennsylvania, for the Smith Observatory
at Hobart College. The date is 1888. The device at the bottom was used to
attach the spectrometer to the telescope: the ring clamped around the telescope
tube and the tubes above and below the collimator arm on the right-hand
side slipped into the two rods on the connector. The spectrometer can also
be used off the telescope.
Brashear (1840-1910) was a self-taught astronometer and instrument maker who produced, among other projects, the 72 inch mirror for the Dominion Observatory in Victoria, British Columbia. | <urn:uuid:560f502f-d8de-4bc1-a913-e29c663b697d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://physics.kenyon.edu/EarlyApparatus/Optics/Spectrometers/Spectrometers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938144 | 2,027 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Back to Cardiovascular Diseases
Aortic valve stenosis
Causes and risk factors
A number of conditions contribute towards aortic stenosis.
Three conditions that are known to cause aortic stenosis are:
1. Calcification of a bicuspid valve
Bicuspid aortic valve is the most common cause of aortic
stenosis in patients under age 65. Normal aortic valves have
3 thin leaflets called cusps. About 2% of people are born
with aortic valves that have only 2 cusps (bicuspid valves).
Although bicuspid valves usually do not impede blood flow
when the patients are young, they do not open as widely as
normal valves with 3 cusps. The turbulent blood flow causes
excessive wear and tear leading to calcification, scarring,
and reduced mobility of the valve leaflets over time. About
10% of bicuspid valves become significantly narrowed,
resulting in the symptoms and heart problems of aortic stenosis.
2. Senile calcific aortic stenosis
The most common cause of aortic stenosis in patients 65
years and over is called "senile calcific aortic stenosis."
With aging, protein collagen of the valve leaflets is
destroyed, and calcium is deposited on the leaflets. Once
valve leaflet mobility is reduced by calcification,
turbulence across the valve increases, causing scarring,
thickening, and stenosis of the valve. Why this aging
process progresses to cause significant aortic stenosis in
some patients but not in others is not known.
3. Rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever rarely causes isolated aortic stenosis. Rheumatic fever is a condition resulting from untreated
infection by group A streptococcal bacteria. Damage to valve
leaflets from rheumatic fever causes increased turbulence
across the valve and more damage. The narrowing from
rheumatic fever occurs from the fusion of the commissures of
the valve leaflets. Rheumatic aortic stenosis usually occurs
with some degree of aortic regurgitation. Under normal
circumstances, the aortic valve closes to prevent blood in
the aorta from flowing back into the left ventricle. In
aortic regurgitation, the diseased valve allows leakage of
blood back into the left ventricle as the ventricular
muscles relax after pumping. These patients also have some
degree of rheumatic damage to the mitral valve.
Subvalvular aortic stenosis
Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy
Valvular aortic stenosis results in chronic left ventricular
pressure overloading. At any stage of life, however, the natural
history of aortic stenosis largely reflects the functional
integrity of the mitral valve. As long as adequate mitral valve
function is maintained, the pulmonary bed is protected from the
systolic pressure overloading imposed by aortic stenosis. In
contrast to mitral valve disease where the pulmonary circuit is
directly involved, compensatory concentric left ventricular
hypertrophy allows the pressure overloaded ventricle to maintain
stroke volume with modest increases in diastolic pressure, and
patients can remain asymptomatic for many years.Eventually, left ventricular hypertrophy results in either
diastolic dysfunction with the onset of congestive symptoms or
myocardial oxygen needs in excess of supply with the onset of
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Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects nearly 26 million Americans and is the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness and lower extremity amputation, and a prime contributor to heart disease and stroke.
HHC has more than 63,000 diabetic patients registered in its electronic database. All HHC clinicians use a standard evidence-based treatment protocol for patients with diabetes. By mining data from an electronic diabetes registry, a web-based tool that uses information from HHC's advanced electronic medical records system to provide a real-time "snapshot" of each diabetic patient's health status, doctors give more targeted, evidence-based treatment and can identify patients who need more support in their self management efforts.
To help diabetic patients become more active participants in their healthcare, HHC has published a Diabetes Wellness Center web site, where they can get tips and resources to get their blood sugar under control. The web site features advice from HHC doctors, nurses and nutritionists, patient success stories, healthy eating and exercise tips, access to free blood monitors, and a comprehensive list of support groups and diabetes wellness classes available in all HHC facilities.
To evaluate the effectiveness of diabetes care and the impact in helping patients keep their disease in good control, HHC measures the number of patients who have been tested for their blood sugar and the percentage of those with healthy blood sugar levels. Cholesterol and blood pressure levels are also closely monitored, since it has been recognized that controlling blood sugar alone is not enough for people with diabetes. Controlling cholesterol levels and blood pressure is crucial to preventing cardiovascular problems, including heart attacks and heart disease, which are high risk conditions for diabetics.
Shown below are the outcomes measured for diabetic patients under our care in the past five years.
Diabetic Patients with Good Control
Diabetic Patients with Poor Control
Diabetic Patients with Cholesterol Under Control
Diabetic Patients with Blood Pressure Under Control | <urn:uuid:160d7232-9ba1-454c-8666-208671d4cf5e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/infocus/html/chronic/diabetes.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930713 | 389 | 3 | 3 |
It is America's most multicultural city.
Multi means many, so multicultural means many cultures. Cities with people from different countries tend to be multicultural. If you have just one culture, then you have a monoculture. Notice the following sentences:
- For multicultural week at school, we have a different country's food each day of the week.
- Multiculturalism has led to many changes in fashion and how people dress.
You get a variety of cultures.
When you have a variety, you have many kinds of something. 'Variety' is a noun. The adjective is 'various', and the verb is 'vary'. Notice the following examples:
- To be healthy, you need to eat a variety of food.
- My mother always told me variety is the spice of life.
Everybody pretty much gets along.
When people get along, that means they have no problem living or working together. When people don't get along, that means they do not like to be near each other and often fight. Notice the following examples:
- I do not get along with my boss at work, so I hate my job.
- When students do not get along in class, it is very difficult for the teacher to do group work.
There aren't any divisions between the people.
A division means there is a break in something. When you have divisions among people, that means there are different groups and that the groups might not get along or like each other. Here are some samples:
- There are some divisions at my work, mainly between management and the employees.
- The baseball league is broken into three divisions: the Northern Division, the Southern Division, and the Western Division.
San Fransisco has amazing architecture.
Architecture refers to the art of buildings. Architecture includes many structures, such as buildings, bridges, stadiums and stations. Here are some samples:
- Italy is very famous for its architecture, especially buildings from Roman times.
- The city has no interesting architecture. All the buildings are boring. | <urn:uuid:89629ba0-1491-42ea-a45a-be1436d15f60> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.elllo.org/english/0350/N358-SFBest.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00198-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972616 | 424 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Mark Wilson March 4th, 2016
This brief post is a correction of a previous entry. Last year I showed what I thought were shatter cones collected many years ago in Adams County, Ohio, by the late Professor Frank L. Koucky of The College of Wooster. James Chesire commented on the post and said it was more likely the specimens were cone-in-cone structures produced by burial diagenesis not bolide impacts. When he sent me the photo above of real shatter cones from the Serpent Mound impact region in southern Ohio, I knew he was correct. Shatter cones have distinctive radiating, longitudinal fractures not seen in similar conical structures in limestones. The above shatter cones are in an unknown Ordovician limestone.
Both shatter cones and cone-in-cone structures are nevertheless pseudofossils in that they are both sometimes confused with organic structures like corals and chaetetids. I shall never mix them up again! Thanks for the correction, James.
Carlton, R.W., Koeberl, C., Baranoski, M.T. and Schumacher, G.A. 1998. Discovery of microscopic evidence for shock metamorphism at the Serpent Mound structure, south-central Ohio: confirmation of an origin by impact. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 162: 177-185.
Dietz, R.S. 1959. Shatter cones in cryptoexplosion structures (meteorite impact?). The Journal of Geology 67: 496-505.
Sagy, A., Fineberg, J. and Reches, Z. 2004. Shatter cones: Branched, rapid fractures formed by shock impact. Journal of Geophysical Research 109: B10209.
Shaub, B.M. 1937. The origin of cone-in-cone and its bearing on the origin of concretions and septaria. American Journal of Science 203: 331-344. | <urn:uuid:bdbc595d-c3f9-4411-b111-7cbe941de06b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2016/03/04/woosters-pseudofossils-of-the-week-shatter-cones-from-southern-ohio/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899341 | 401 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Preschool social skills:
These sources are cited in my article about
preschool social skills.
Berthoud-Papandropoulou I and Kilcher H. 2003. Is a false belief
statement a lie or a truthful statement? Judgments and explanations of
children aged 3 to 8. Developmental Science 6(2): 173-177.
B, Pusser HE, and Goodman I. 1976. The influence of “Sesame Street" and
“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood" on children’s social behavior in the
preschool. Child Development 47: 138-144.
Corsaro WA. 1981.
Friendship in the nursery school: Social organization in a peer
environment. In SR Asher and JM Gottman (eds), The development of
children’s friendships, pp. 207-241. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University
Cote S, Tremblay RE, Nagin D, Zoccolillo M, and Vitaro F.
2002. The development of impulsivity, fearfulness, and helpfulness
during childhood: Patterns of consistency and change in the trajectories
of boys and girls. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43:
Criss MM, Pettit GS, Bates JE, Dodge KA and Lapp AL.
2002. Family adversity, positive peer relationships, and children’s
externalizing behavior: A longitudinal perspective on risk and
resilience. Child Development 73: 1220-1237.
Dodge KA, Lansford
JE, Burks VS, Bates JE, Pettit GS, Fontaine R and Price JM. 2003. Peer
rejection and social information-processing factors in the development
of aggressive behavior problems in children. Child Development 74:
Denham S, Mason T, Caverly S, Schmidt M, Hackney R,
Caswell C, deMulder E. 2001. Preschoolers at Play: Co-socialisers of
emotion and social competence. International Journal of Behavioral
Development, 25: 290-301.
Denham SA, McKinley M, Couchaud EA and
Holt, R. 1990. Emotional and behavioral predictors of peer status in
young preschoolers. Child Development, 61: 1145-1152.
Denham SA 1989. Maternal affect and toddlers social-emotional competence. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59: 368-376.
SA. 1997. “When I have a bad dream, my Mommy holds me": Preschoolers
conceptions of emotions, parental socialization, and emotional
competence. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 20:
Denham SA, Cook MC and Zoller D 1992. Baby looks very
sad: Discussions about emotionsbetween mother and preschooler. British
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Denham SA and
Grout L. 1993. Socialization of emotion: Pathway to preschoolers affect
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Dunn J and
Cutting AL. 1999. Understanding others, and individual differences in
friendship interactions in young children. Social Development, 8:
Eisenberg N, Guthrie IK, Murphy B, Shepard S, Cumberland A
and Carlo G. 1999. Consistency and development of prosocial
dispositions: A longitudinal study. Child Development 70, 1360-1372.
J, Englund M and Sroufe LA 1992. Predicting peer competence and peer
relationships in childhood from early parent-child relationships. In RD
Parke and GW Ladd (eds), Family-Peer Relationships: Modes of Linkage.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Gopnick A, Meltzoff AN, and Kuhl PK. 1999. The scientist in the crib. New York: Morrow.
Gottman JM. 1983. How children become friends. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 48 (Serial no. 86).
and Petit GS, Dodge FA and Bates JE. 1994. Dyadic synchrony of
mother-child interaction: Relation with children’s subsequent
kindergarten adjustment. Family Relations 43: 417-424.
DeWolf DM, Wozniak P and Burts DC. 1992. Maternal and paternal
disciplinary styles: Relationships with preschoolers’ playground
behavioral orientations and peer status. Child Development 63: 879-892.
DF, Caplan MZ, Castle J and Stimson CA. 1991. Does sharing become
increasingly rational in the second year of life? Developmental
Psychology, 27: 987-993.
Hodges E, Boivin M, Vitaro F, Bukowski,
WM. 1999. The power of friendship: Protection against an escalating
cycle of peer victimization. Developmental Psychology, 35: 94-101.
K, Speranza H, Hazen N. 1992. Cohesive discourse and peer acceptance:
longitudinal relations in the pre-school years. Merrill Palmer
Quarterly, 38: 364-381.
Konner m. 1991. Universals of behavioral
development in relation to brain myelination. In KR Gibson and AC
Petersen (eds), Brain maturation and cognitive development: Comparative
and cross-cultural perpectives (New York: Aldine de Gruyter).
J and Gibbs JC. 1996. Parents’ use of inductive discipline: relations
to children’s empathy and prosocial behavior. Child Development, 67:
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1994. Parent-child conversations about peer relationships: Contributions
to competence. Family Relations, 43: 425-432.
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and Craig WM. Emotional regulation and display in classroom victims of
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relevant contextual factors. Social Development, 9: 226-245.
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of children's vigilance towards deception. Cognition. 112(3):367-80.
McDonald EB 1987. Parent-child physical play with rejected, neglected and popular boys. Developmental Psychology, 23: 705-711.
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disappointing situation and children’s emotional reactivity: Relations
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cognitive-social learning curriculum. In G Carteledge and JF Milbum
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Rogoff B. 2003. Privileged treatment of toddlers: Cultural aspects of
individual choice and responsibility. Development Psychology 39:
Petit GS and Harrist AW. 1993. Children’s possessive
and socially unsaved playground behavior with peers: Origins in early
family relations. In CH Hart (ed), Children on playgrounds: Research
perspectives and applications. Albany, NY: State University of New York
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P. 1984. The role of affect in social competence. In CE Izard, J. Kagan
and RB Zajonc (eds), Emotions, cognition, and behavior (pp. 289-319).
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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Content last modified 12/2009 | <urn:uuid:27b22d3e-234c-405e-a190-ff1907549589> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.parentingscience.com/preschool-social-skills-references.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.735869 | 1,854 | 2.609375 | 3 |
DURHAM, N.C. -- Ancient groundwater being tapped by Jordan, one of the 10 most water-deprived nations in the world, has been found to contain twenty times the radiation considered safe for drinking water in a new study by an international team of researchers.
"The combined activities of 228 radium and 226 radium the two long-lived isotopes of radium in the groundwater we tested are up to 2000 percent higher than international drinking standards," said Avner Vengosh, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.
Making the water safe for long-term human consumption is possible, he said, but it will require extra steps to reduce its radioactivity.
Vengosh and his research team, made up of scientists from Jordan, Palestine, Israel and the United States, published their findings Feb. 19 in a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology. The paper is online at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es802969r.
Jordan's annual water use exceeds the natural replenishment of its major river, the Yarmouk, and its local aquifers that are becoming salinized as a result of over-pumping.
In 2007, the Jordanian government announced plans for a $600-million project to pump low-saline fossil groundwater from the Disi aquifer, located along the nation's remote southern border with Saudi Arabia, and pipe it 250 kilometers north to the capital, Amman, a city of 3.1 million people, and other population centers.
Fossil groundwater is a nonrenewable supply of water trapped underground in aquifers. In recent years, policymakers in countries facing chronic water shortages have increasingly viewed low-saline supplies of fossil groundwater as an important potential source of water for human and agricultural use. Libya and Saudi Arabia, for example, have relied extensively on fossil groundwater from Nubian sandstone aquifers similar to the Disi to meet their water needs in recent decades.
Most fossil groundwater resources in North Africa and the Middle East are characterized by high-quality water with low salinity. "The assumption has been that unsafe radioactive levels occur primarily in high-saline groundwater, so low-saline sources, such as water from a Nubian sandstone aquifer, are relatively safe resources just waiting to be tapped," Vengosh said.
To test that hypothesis, Vengosh and his colleagues investigated water from 37 pumping wells in the Disi aquifer's Rum Group, where low-saline groundwater is extracted from Cambro-Ordovician sandstone, and from wells in the Khreim Group, where saltier water is extracted from an aquifer containing larger amounts of clay minerals and oxides. All samples were analyzed for major and trace elements and for four radium isotopes. For comparative purposes, sandstone rocks from the Disi aquifer, along with Nubian sandstone rocks from the nearby Negev Desert in Israel, were also measured for radium.
"We found a lack of correlation between salinity and radioactivity," Vengosh said. "Instead, our findings suggest that an aquifer's geological properties may be a much more significant factor."
Vengosh and his group hypothesize that an aquifer with a higher content of clay minerals and oxides provides more adsorption sites for radium, and this results in lower radionuclide levels in the water itself. Sandstone aquifers, on the other hand, offer fewer adsorption sites, and, as a result, generate radium-rich groundwater.
"Given that most of the aquifers in the region that contain fossil water are composed of Nubian sandstone and are characterized by low-saline groundwater, similar to that in the Disi aquifer, we suggest that high-radioactive groundwater may also exist in these basins. This could pose health risks for a large population," Vengosh said. Groundwater from the Disi aquifer is already used for drinking water in parts of Jordan and, more extensively, in Saudi Arabia, where it is known as the Saq aquifer.
"Making groundwater from the Disi aquifer and similar sandstone basins in the region safe for long-term human use will require a significant reduction of radionuclide levels," Vengosh said.
Health officials could reduce radioactivity to safe levels by diluting radium-rich water with low-radium water from other sources, he said, or by treating it with ion exchange, reverse osmosis desalination or lime softening. Each of these three treatment technologies does a good job of removing radium, Vengosh noted, but each produces solid and liquid residues that would have to be handled and disposed of as low-level radioactive waste.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies radium as a Group-A carcinogenic material, which means exposure to it could cause cancer.
|Contact: Tim Lucas| | <urn:uuid:d314a983-0936-4041-9527-77feb9053b0b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Jordans-fossil-water-source-has-high-radiation-levels-37588-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949593 | 1,047 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Digital Literacy: Preparing Students for a Global Tech-Based Economy
Digital literacy is certainly necessary for K12 students in order to succeed in school and beyond. However, instilling proficiency with technology can be challenging for students to learn and teaches to teach. Tools such as Learning.com’s easy-to-use instructional activities can aid teachers in ensuring their students are ready for the 21st century workforce. In this web seminar, originally broadcast on October 2, 2012, an administrator described how the Longwood Central School district in New York used Learning.com to increase digital literacy among its students, as well as report results to the state.
The Common Core State Standards are aimed at ensuring all students have the knowledge and skills to be ready for college and the workforce. The ELA standards focus on reading, writing, and speaking skills that are grounded in evidence from literature or informational texts. The standards encourage students to engage in regular practice with complex texts and academic language. The math standards work at developing coherence by encouraging students to think across grades.
Students should pursue conceptual understanding, fluency, and application within major topics. These standards relate to college readiness by requiring students to demonstrate independence and build strong content knowledge. It is not just about reading and answering questions, but what students can do with that information. Both woven into the math standards and explicitly stated in the ELA standards is the requirement of using technology and digital media strategically and capably. Using technology in the classroom helps students learn concepts in new ways.
Charting data on a spreadsheet can help information visually come alive in an engaging way that using a pen and graph paper cannot. The U.S. Department of Education funded Smarter Balance and PARCC, two consortia of states, with grants to develop new assessments that are aligned to the Common Core. These assessments must be rigorous, valid, provide achievement, growth, and college readiness information, and be administered online.
The two types of questions students will see on these assessments are “technology enabled” and “technology enhanced.” Technology enabled questions require an interactive tool to answer a traditional question, while enhanced questions have students using interactive tools to create something. Digital literacy plays a very important role in a student’s ability to properly take assessments. They must employ skills such as basic typing, copying, and dragging. However, complex Internet research may also be required, prompting students to evaluate information, think critically, and properly cite sources. Students who use technology at home or in the classroom are found to perform better on such assessments.
Therefore, it is important to equip all students with the tools necessary to complete these tests. A sample Grade 3 question from PARCC has students selecting and dragging soybeans into a field as many times as needed until 3/4 of the field is full. This technology enabled question simply requires a student to understand how to use a mouse and the concept being asked in order to answer. The second part of the question requires the student to explain their answer, which necessitates typing skills. Grade 7 PARCC students may have to answer a question that asks them to calculate the speed of an object based on charts, graphs, and data tables.
Knowledge of and experience using spreadsheets would prepare a student for answering this question, which required dragging and dropping and written analysis. Smarter Balance tests contain performance tasks that are technology enhanced. A sample question for sixth graders has several in depth steps, including researching a topic on the Internet and watching a video. Students need to know how to find this information, as well as think critically about what type of information is valid and appropriate. They must analyze the video, do some writing, do some more research, and create an outline in a word processing tool.
Finally, some sort of visual must be created and the student must record a speech. The Common Core ELA standards being tested here clearly depend on proficient digital literacy.
Our administrators, educators, and faculty are taking intense steps to ensure all of our students are digitally literate. Since our district is diverse socioeconomically, it has certainly been a challenge. All students must take a computer literacy assessment that will be reported to the state for federal reporting.
The New York State Department of Education mandates that all students must be “technology literate” by the eighth grade. Its definition of technology literate includes:
- Having an understanding of the concepts behind computing equipment, network connectivity, and application software.
- Being able to responsibly use the appropriate technology to access, synthesize, and evaluate information to increase learning in all subject areas.
- The ability to acquire new knowledge for on-going and lifelong learning in the 21st century.
Teachers are also mandated to meet technology competency standards that ensure their ability to use tools effectively in supporting student achievement. To begin to improve our students’ computer literacy, I turned to the state Department of Education website. Learning.com was listed as a method of measuring and reporting student growth in technology literacy.
Since I was also looking for activities for students to do in preparation for their assessment, Learning.com was perfect for our school. It is an instructional system with grade-appropriate subject matter to support the goal of digital literacy.
To implement the system, all K-8 teachers took the technology literacy assessment to determine any professional development needs and help teachers understand what their students would be up against. Teachers also received 2 hours of pullout training on Learning.com’s instructional activities and how to use the content to maximum benefit for each student. A committee was then formed to develop curriculum for each grade level using Learning.com’s resources.
Students are assigned a 30 minute period each week in the computer lab to work on Learning.com assignments. These materials focus on word processing, multimedia and presentations, telecommuting and the Internet, spreadsheets, and more. We have definitely seen growth. In 2008, 670 eighth graders took the Learning.com technology literacy assessment and only 53 percent met the proficiency standard. In 2012, 654 students took the exam and 72 percent met the standard.
Learning.com has helped us help our students be more prepared. Teachers use Learning.com’s resources for various types of instruction. The keyboard is taught in a grade-specific way. Kindergartners are learning what the letter “B” looks like, sounds like, and where it is found on the keyboard. Older students are taught about proper keyboard fingering. Since New York schools are required to teach Internet safety, we also use Learning.com’s high quality resources for this.
Not only have students benefited from Learning.com, but the teachers are as well. By using the instructional tools aimed at the students, teachers were gaining a more in-depth knowledge of the subject matter. Simply doing the student activities increased teacher proficiency. Learning.com is a one-stop shop for providing students with the tools needed for digital literacy.
To watch this web seminar in its entirety, please go to http://www.districtadministration.com/ws100212. | <urn:uuid:c0fe659e-31b9-4925-a9cf-e071b8f70882> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.districtadministration.com/article/digital-literacy-preparing-students-global-tech-based-economy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953737 | 1,447 | 4 | 4 |
Explaining a serious diagnosis to a child is not a one step or one day process. When a parent, relative or close family friend has cancer, adults may feel so overwhelmed themselves that they are at a loss for how to explain the news, reassure or comfort a child. Children respond to serious news according to age, personality, how the information is imparted, and the atmosphere when they are told or overhear the particulars.
Even the most sophisticated and mature adult responds to serious health news by breaking down the diagnosis and prognosis into simple terms. What is the doctor saying? What does this news mean for the person I love; the person who loves me? Does it hurt? Is there medicine that can make it better? When will we know when everything is ok? Or not...
Children depend on the people who love them to take care of their most basic needs, and more than adults may be worried about what a diagnosis will mean in terms of how much time and effort the sick person will have to spend with them.
Most adults will try to explain a diagnosis to a child keeping in mind children's need to feel secure and their age appropriate or developmental level for understanding. It happens that oversimplifying or understating the seriousness of a diagnosis can confuse a child or give them the impression that adults are keeping secrets.
Children may not realize how serious the information they are given is until they see how other people respond when hearing about the news. Or they may not have been told at all what is causing all the family drama and concern, and react with a general fear or anxiety response.
Sometimes children seem to understand and be able to cope with potentially devastating news when they hear it but are overwhelmed, and this does not become apparent within a day or two, or even after a few weeks. Because they may overhear or misunderstand comments and can construct the worst case scenario, it can be comforting to them for adults in charge to repeat the actual news and changes that can be expected in the near future. Older children and gifted younger children need as much reassurance and consideration as their younger brothers and sisters.
Sometimes children with developmental disabilities or other special needs are seen as lacking the capacity to understand or process serious events or long term treatments or consequences. Or they may be assumed to have a stronger connection to the spiritual world and a way of understanding that sets them apart from common needs for reassurance or reminders.
No matter what assumptions are made, it is important to understand that every child deserves the chance to have an understanding of what is going on, to be reassured and comforted, and to be given generous opportunities to explore and express their feelings and concerns.
Often, when adults read stores written for children, the simple words and concepts are equally comforting and reassuring to them. During stressful times, our own words can fail us. When we provide comfort through books, stuffed animals, cuddly blankets or other items that are recommended for children, we discover how much we need the same.
National, regional and local treatment centers may have resources for families to share with children. Some have been developed or donated by others who share similar experiences, or by counselors and other mental health professionals.
Browse your public library, local bookstore or online retailer for titles like Because Someone I Love Has Cancer: Kids' Activity Book or Butterfly Kisses and Wishes on Wings: When someone you love has cancer...a hopeful, helpful book for kids
Sometimes children need to know about the cancer diagnosis of a classmate:
Books About Cancer for Kids | <urn:uuid:29af7783-de6d-485d-81d2-bccd097e7e81> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bellaonline.com/ArticlesP/art56383.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952381 | 717 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The Success of Precision Medicine Requires a Public Health PerspectivePosted on by
The announcement of a new major US Precision Medicine initiative comes more than a decade after the completion of the Human Genome Project, the ambitious project that culminated in sequencing all 3 billion base pairs of our genome. Continuous improvement in the quality of sequencing, dramatic reduction in price, and ongoing advances in multiple sectors of biotechnology all promise a new era of medicine known variably as personalized medicine, genomic medicine and more recently precision medicine. With conventional medicine, patients are treated individually but typically with the same treatment that everyone else with that condition receives. Thus an opportunity may be missed: certain medical interventions can be more effective or cause fewer side effects for some patients than for others, making it important to identify in advance which patients are more or less likely to benefit from the intervention. This is where precision medicine comes in. Precision medicine takes into account individual differences in the genes, environments, and lifestyles of people allowing the design of targeted disease interventions from the start. While genomics is often suggested as the leading driver of personalization, other factors may be equally as important. For example, health information technology can be used to integrate medical history into patient-centered approaches to improving health and treating disease.
As paradoxical as it may seem, while precision medicine focuses on individualized care for each patient, its success truly requires a population-based perspective. First, it is important to learn what works and what does not for one person, but it is impossible to infer causality by working with one person at a time. To be informative, data on an individual need to be compared with data from large numbers of people to recognize important individual characteristics and to identify relevant population subgroups that are likely to respond differently to drugs and other interventions.
Second, collecting information from large numbers of people is far more informative when these people are representative of the underlying population from which individuals are drawn. Using data from convenience samples—i.e., collected without regard to important factors such as race/ethnicity, age, and sex–can lead to substantial selection bias and unreliable disease prediction models. A strong epidemiologic foundation is needed to interpret genomics and other “big data” for applications to healthcare.
Third, while precision medicine is currently focused on treatment, a compelling case can be made for giving even more attention to early detection and disease prevention. Although personalized treatments can help save the lives of people who are already sick, disease prevention applies to all of us. “Precision prevention” then may be useful in using both science and limited resources for targeting prevention strategies to subsets of the population. For example, recent data suggest that knowing the speed with which some people metabolize nicotine, based on genetic and other factors, could lead to personalized smoking cessation interventions to complement the highly successful public health efforts that have resulted in reduction in smoking over the past few decades. Another approach to precision prevention is increased screening of people at greater risk of cancer. Family health history collection is an inexpensive tool for identifying individuals and families that require earlier and more intensive screening for breast and ovarian cancer or colorectal cancer.
Finally, implementation of precision medicine requires the full participation and education patients (all of us), communities, physicians, payers, and the healthcare community. This should be guided by strong “translational” implementation sciences which go beyond the traditional bench to bedside model (see recent paper on this topic). Society has a stake in assuring that the national investment in precision medicine research leads to tangible health benefits for all and does not worsen existing health disparities. This is where strong public health-healthcare partnerships are key in assessing the needs of individuals and communities, developing appropriate policies and guidelines, ensuring that all people have access to the intended benefits of technology, and tracking effectiveness and cost effectiveness outcomes in the real world.
An often used example of early success in precision medicine is targeted therapy for a small subset of patients affected by cystic fibrosis, a common genetic disorder that leads to premature disease and disability. However, the price tag of the drug can be around $300,000 per year per patient. Economic considerations can have major implications for differential access to such treatment for families, communities and society at large.
These are the early days of precision medicine. The road ahead is long. Let us make sure that a public health perspective is included at the outset to ensure the success of research and ultimately the effective and responsible implementation of new scientific discoveries for the benefit of all.
- Page last reviewed:March 10, 2015
- Page last updated:March 10, 2015
- Content source: | <urn:uuid:a68f0568-7d53-4ac0-a01b-db00be8b1254> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.cdc.gov/genomics/2015/01/29/precision-medicine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941746 | 939 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Petite AGNs Reveal New Secrets
July 6, 2012
Figure 1. Michelle and T-ReCS mid-infrared images of some of the low-luminosity AGN in this study. Some of the galaxies, such as NGC 1052, have strong, compact nuclei reminiscent of higher-luminosity Seyfert galaxies or quasars. Others, like NGC 3169, show extended emission that could be due to stars forming around the active nucleus. To the right of each of the mid-infrared images is a Hubble Space Telescope optical image of the same region.
Figure 2. The strength of the silicate dust emission feature in many of the low-luminosity AGN (denoted S10, the black circles), is unusually large compared to the amount of gas in their nucleus (measured by log NH). One possible explanation is that these galaxies harbour just a small amount of optically-thin dust, which is expected according to some models that predict the disappearance of the dusty torus in low-luminosity AGN.
High-resolution, mid-infrared observations at Gemini North and South have revealed a wide range of morphologies for low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGN). While the data present a broad characterization of these objects' properties in this spectral region, they also present an interesting puzzle to ponder.
Active galactic nuclei (AGN), the supermassive black holes that feed on gas, dust, and stars at the centers of galaxies, spend most of their existence in a near dormant state. Until recently, astronomers had observed only a handful of low-luminosity AGN in the infrared at high resolution. Therefore, we didn't have a good, general overview of their properties in this potentially revealing spectral region. Our observations of 22 low-luminosity AGN, taken with both of Gemini's mid-infrared instruments (Michelle and T-ReCS), have changed this situation.
The images reveal a wide range of morphologies, from galaxies dominated by a central, compact source (much like images of higher-luminosity Seyferts and quasars) to those with weak nuclei embedded in large amounts of extended, mid-infrared emitting material that could signal star formation around the nucleus (Figure 1). To complement these observations, we combed the literature for other high-resolution measurements that reveal the emission of the nucleus from radio to X-ray frequencies. We also took advantage of low-resolution but exquisitely sensitive spectroscopy from the Spitzer Space Telescope archive.
A rather complex picture emerged from the data. In some of the most weakly-accreting AGN, even Gemini's resolution doesn’t separate the infrared emission of the nucleus from that of the surrounding galaxy. However, we do find some cases where the infrared emission comes not from dust or the outer regions of the accretion disk, but from synchrotron radiation –– fast-moving electrons spiraling round magnetic field lines in the galaxy’s core. In a couple of those galaxies, the evidence suggests that the dusty torus is indeed absent (see sidebar). This is predicted by some models describing the nature and origin of the torus.
The more strongly-accreting AGN (but still weaker than most of those studied to date), look in many ways a lot like "conventional" Seyfert galaxies in the infrared. It's possible, then, that these low-luminosity AGN aren't as different as we had thought. However, the data do present some tantalizing hints that in these AGN, too, the dusty torus no longer exists. When we compare the dust emission features in their Spitzer spectra with the amount of gas around the nucleus (determined from published X-ray observations), it appears that there is an unusually small amount of dust compared to gas (Figure 2). This, again, is expected from some models that attempt to explain the origin of the torus.
If the torus doesn't exist in these objects, then we will need to find another way of explaining their Seyfert-like infrared emission. To better understand the observations, we have started to compare detailed models of the accretion disk, dust and synchrotron emission to the data. But right now we are simply happy to have high-quality observations to puzzle over in the months to come.
The article about this research has been published by the Astronomical Journal. | <urn:uuid:1c9b4d80-dcb6-4eac-b82b-784771f602cc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gemini.edu/node/11848 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94096 | 928 | 2.796875 | 3 |
The Badenoch account of the fairies is much the same. I have received eight stories from a Highland minister, who has been kind enough to interest himself in the matter, at the request of the Countess of Seafield. These show, that according to popular belief, fairies commonly carried off men, women, and children, who seemed to die, but really lived underground. In short, that mortals were separated from fairies by a very narrow line.
1. A man sees fairies carding and spinning in a shealing where he is living at the time. Amongst them is Miss Emma MacPherson of Cluny, who had been dead about one hundred years.
2. A woman, benighted, gets into a fairy hill, where she promises to give her child, on condition that she is let out. She gives her child when it is born, and is allowed to visit it "till such time as the child, upon one
occasion, looked at her sternly in the face, and in a very displeased mood and tone upbraided her for the manner in which she had acted in giving her child over unto those amongst whom it was now doomed to dwell." The mother scolded, found herself standing on the hillock outside, and never got in again.
3. A lad recognizes his mother, who had been carried off by fairies, but who was believed to be dead. She was recovered from the fairies by a man who threw his bonnet to a passing party, and demanded an exchange. The rescuer gave up the wife, and she returned home. Of this story I have several versions in Gaelic and in English, and I believe it is in print somewhere.
4. An old woman meets her deceased landlord and landlady, who tell her that the fairies have just carried off a young man, who is supposed to be dead. They advise her not to be out so late.
5. The young Baron of Kincardine is entertained by fairies, who steal his father's snuff for him when he asks for a pinch.
6. The young baron meets a bogle with a red hand, tells, and is punished.
7. The baron's dairymaid, when at a shealing, has a visit from a company of fairies, who dance and steal milk.
8. "A man, once upon a time, coming up from Inverness late at night, coming through a solitary part called Slockmuic, was met by crowds of people, none of whom he could recognize, nor did they seem to take any notice of him. They engaged in close conversation, talked on subjects not a word of which he could pick up. At length accosting one individual of them, he asked who they were? 'None of the seed of Abram nor of Adam's race; but men of that party who lost favour at the
[paragraph continues] Court of Grace." He was advised not to practise late at night travelling in future.
Thomas MacDonald, gamekeeper at Dunrobin, also gives me a fairy tale, which is "now commonly believed in Badenoch."
9. A man went from home, leaving his wife in childbed. Her temper had never been ruffled. He found her a wicked scold. Thinking all was not right, he piled up a great fire, and threatened to throw in the occupant of the bed, unless she told him "where his own wife had been brought." She told him that his wife had been carried to Cnoc Fraing, a mountain on the borders of Badenoch and Strathdearn, and that she was. appointed successor.
The man went to Cnoc Fraing. He was suspected before of having something supernatural about him; and he soon found the fairies, who told him his wife had been taken to Shiathan Mor, a neighbouring mountain. He went there and was sent to Tom na Shirich, near Inverness. There he went, and at the "Fairy Knoll" found his wife and brought her back. "The person who related this story pretended to have seen people who knew distant descendants of the woman." | <urn:uuid:29cca136-1152-480f-add2-ed44923365c4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/pt2/pt215.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992345 | 875 | 2.53125 | 3 |
When the Wind Bears Go Dancing
by Phoebe Stone Illustrated by Phoebe Stone
Reviewed by Amanda C. (age 8) and Sarah E. (age 7)
Amanda C. and Sarah E. are students in Mrs. O'Hanlon's 2nd Grade Class
Five wind bears come to this girl's house in her imagination. The bears take her to the sky. They wear big hats and long coats so that nobody will know who they are. They ride in a rattle-bang car. They giggle and wiggle in the orange moonlight. Tigers, lions, leopards and many other animals play in this book.
We like the wind bears because they are magical. We like the part when they dance because they giggle and wiggle and spin and twirl.
This book is a poem. This book has beautiful language which goes with the pictures. If you like poetry and have a good imagination, this is the book for you. | <urn:uuid:4d0bef27-c960-47d4-b4b7-831b64b651a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://spaghettibookclub.org/review.php?review_id=227 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955181 | 201 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Among the duties of the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission are to compile a list of liberators of concentration camps who have agreed to share their verifiable knowledge and experiences regarding the Holocaust and to gather resources that could be included in or used to support Holocaust and genocide courses of study and awareness programs. With these goals in mind, the THGC contracted with Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History to create the Texas Liberators Oral History project, chronicling the oral histories of 19 Texans who were involved in the liberation of camps at the end of World War II.
Now complete, the video interviews with all 19 liberators are now available through the Commission's YouTube channel. The THGC has also partnered with the Library of Congress to make transcripts of the interviews available through the institution’s Veterans History Project. Trailers for several of the interviews are given below.
It’s the fervent hope of the THGC that the oral histories will be viewed by the public and these men remembered for their service and their efforts to free survivors of concentration camps and used by educators to meet TEKS requirements while bringing a human story to the horrific atrocities of the Holocaust. To accompany the testimonies, the THGC has developed lesson plans for classroom use. Aligning closely with the TEKS, these lessons provide teachers a way of incorporating media involving Texans into their World War II/Holocaust units for World Geography Studies, World History Studies, and U.S. History Studies Since 1877 classes.
Liberator Testimony Video Trailers
Robert Anderson, Lubbock
Ray Buchanan, Mt. Pleasant
Wilson Canafax, Fort Worth
William "Bill" Danner, El Paso
William Dippo, San Antonio
Please visit the THGC YouTube channel to view the extended interviews with both the liberators above and the other veterans who interviewed for this project. | <urn:uuid:97a4aa37-28c5-4698-b127-b98a676fbec1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thgc.texas.gov/resources-for-education/resource/oral-histories | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911524 | 377 | 2.609375 | 3 |
. The yellow-pink sliver the size of a corn plaster is the state-of-the-art in
Dr Mark Post, head of physiology at Maastricht University, plans to unveil a complete burger – produced at a cost of more than £200,000 – this October.
He hopes Heston Blumenthal, the chef and owner of the three Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant in Berkshire, will cook the offering for a celebrity taster as yet unnamed.
The project, funded by a wealthy, anonymous, individual aims to slash the number of cattle farmed for food
, and in doing so reduce one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
"Meat demand is going to double in the next 40 years and right now we are using 70 per cent of all our agricultural capacity to grow meat through livestock," Post said.
"You can easily calculate that we need alternatives. If you don't do anything meat will become a luxury food and be very, very expensive."
Livestock contribute to global warming through unchecked releases of methane, a gas 20 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver, Post said the burger would be a "proof of concept" to demonstrate that "with in-vitro methods, out of stem cells we can make a product that looks like and feels and hopefully tastes like meat".
Post is focusing on making beef burgers from stem cells because cows are among the least efficient animals at converting the food they eat into food for humans.
"Cows and pigs have an efficiency rate of about 15 per cent, which is pretty inefficient. Chickens are more efficient and fish even more," Post said. "If we can raise the efficiency from 15 per cent to 50 per cent it would be a tremendous leap forward."
Post and his team of six have so far grown thin sheets of cow muscle measuring three centimetres (cm) long, 1.5 cm wide, and half a millimetre thick. To make a burger will take 3,000 pieces of muscle and a few hundred pieces of fatty tissue, that will be minced together and pressed into a patty.
Each piece of muscle is made by extracting stem cells from cow muscle tissue and growing them in containers in the laboratory. The cells are grown in a culture medium containing foetal calf serum, which contains scores of nutrients the cells need to grow.
The slivers of muscle grow between pieces of Velcro and flex and contract as they develop. To make more protein in the cells – and so improve the texture of the tissue – the scientists shock them with an electric current.
Post said he could theoretically increase the number of burgers made from a single cow from 100 to 100 million. "That means we could reduce the number of livestock we use by one million," he said.
If lab-grown meat mimics farmed meat perfectly – and Post admits it may not – the meat could become a premium product just as free range and organic items have.
He said that in conversations with the Dutch Society of Vegetarians, the chairman estimated half its members would start to eat meat if he could guarantee that it cost fewer animal lives.
Meat grown in the laboratory could have several advantages, because its manufacture is controlled at each step. The tissue could be grown to produce high levels of healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids, or to have a particular texture.
Because the burgers are made from animal stem cells, researchers could make products from more exotic animals. "We could make panda meat, I'm sure we could," Post said.
He believes it will be a relatively simple matter to scale up the operation, since most of the technical obstacles have already been overcome. "I'd estimate that we could see mass production in another 10 to 20 years," he said. | <urn:uuid:ec73f2cb-9e74-4d8d-8ffb-b540a8748e8a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/200000-testtube-burger-marks-milestone-in-future-meateating-3084.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965917 | 792 | 2.5625 | 3 |
El Niño has fizzled, and you can forget the forecasts of a wetter, cooler Texas winter, said the state climatologist.
Though many agricultural producers may be disappointed in not having a wet winter to replenish soil-moisture levels, there’s some good news mixed with the bad, said Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, state climatologist and regents professor at Texas A&M University.
“The closest thing to a sure bet is that this won’t be another La Niña winter,” Nielsen-Gammon said. “But next year the odds are La Niña will ramp up again, and with them the chances that next winter will be a dry one.”
As recently as late August, forecasters, including those at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, were expecting a stronger-than-average El Niño to develop in the tropical Pacific, he said.
The earlier prediction of a strong El Niño was good news for drought recovery for most of the state, Nielsen-Gammon said. Though an El Niño’s effects are usually stronger in the southern parts of the state and along the Gulf Coast, it generally leads to wetter, cooler weather for the entire state.
Typically, the development of an El Niño begins with warmer ocean temperatures, at least about 1 degree Fahrenheit, above normal, which is what climatologists were seeing during the summer, he said. The situation, once it begins, usually results in a “feedback situation” that further raises ocean temperatures and magnifies the effect.
“As the warm temperatures spread across the Pacific, the winds weaken, allowing the warm water to remain at the surface longer before losing any of its heat,” Nielsen-Gammon said. “However, the feedback failed to develop, and now we are expecting a neutral situation,” he said.
“Neutral situation,” means there are now equal chances of either a wet or dry winter, Nielsen-Gammon said.
“In the meantime, the tropical Pacific is likely to stay neutral, he said. This means a good chance that rainfall this spring and summer will also tend to be close to normal, to the extent that Texas weather is ever normal,” he said.
More information on the current Texas drought and wildfire alerts can be found on the AgriLife Extension Agricultural Drought Task Force website at http://agrilife.tamu.edu/drought/. | <urn:uuid:ca346fc2-893d-4093-bcb3-75f8740e23d8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://southwestfarmpress.com/print/management/climatologist-el-ni-o-fizzles-and-winter-might-be-nothing-special | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942624 | 523 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is distributed throughout the artic region, or the area surrounding the North Pole (Nowak, 1991). The species has a unique habitat of pack ice and sea ice (Ramsay and Stirling, 1988; Nowak, 1991), and the front paws of polar bears are specialized for swimming. Polar bears are typically two to 2.5 m in length with a shoulder height of about 1.5 m. Males have been documented to weigh substantially more than females: females weigh between 150 kg and 300 kg, while males can weigh between 300 kg and 800 kg. Polar bears are typically white, although their coat can turn a yellowish shade during the summer (Nowak, 1991).
Polar bears belong to the mammalian group Ursidae. Ursidae includes three genera and eight species of extant bears (Nowak, 1991). Bears are cosmopolitan except for Antarctica and Australia (Ramsay and Stirling, 1988). Individuals are mostly solitary, although females are often accompanied by their young. Bears are typically inactive during the winter, spending the winter months sleeping in a den and living off stored fat. They are not usually aggressive, however individuals will engage in aggressive behavior if they feel threatened or when their cubs or food source is threatened (Nowak, 1991). Birth occurs between November and February, typically when bears are in their dens. Sexual maturity is reached between the ages of 2.5 and 6. Litters range in size from one to four young (Nowak, 1991). Females have long inter-birth intervals and are unable to enter estrous with unweaned cubs. Due to slow reproductive rates, bears have a difficult time recovering from population decreases. Additionally, populations have been documented to have a lack of, or substantial decrease in, reproduction during periods when resources are low (Ramsay and Stirling, 1988).
Unlike other bears that are omnivorous or herbivorous, polar bears are generally carnivorous (Ramsay and Stirling, 1988). Their diet primarily consists of ring and bearded seals (Ramsay and Stirling, 1988), although they will also eat reindeer, fish, and occasionally vegetation and berries (Nowak, 1991). During the spring, polar bears hunt for seals by breaking through the snow covers and breathing holes of seal dens (Ramsay and Stirling, 1988).
Polar bears also differ from other bears in having higher activity levels during the winter. Only pregnant females spend the winter months inside a den (Nowak, 1991). However, all individuals will use a den for shelter during particularly severe weather (Nowak, 1991; Gunderson, 1976). Dens can occur in a variety of places including caves, icebergs, dry river beds, and snow bridges. Although many dens are simple one-room structures, the dens of pregnant females can be complex with long entrances, multiple rooms, and even multiple levels (Gunderson, 1976). Pregnant females will enter their den between October and November and remain until March or April.
The polar bear mating season occurs between March and June. However, implantation is delayed until the fall months (Ramsay and Stirling, 1998; Nowak, 1991). Females give birth to young while they are in their dens, typically between November and January (Nowak, 1991). Females give birth every two to four years (Nowak, 1991).
Additional Information on the Skull
Click on the thumbnails below for labeled images of the skull in standard anatomical views.
Gunderson, H. L. 1976. Mammalogy. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, NY. 483 pp.
Nowak, R. M. 1991. Walker's Mammals of the World, Volume 2. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. 1629 pp.
Ramsay, M. A., and I. Stirling. 1988. Reproductive biology and ecology of female polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Journal of Zoology 214:601-634 Part 4.
Ursus maritimus page on the Animal Diversity Web (University of Michigan Museum of Zoology)
U. maritimus page on Wikipedia
U. maritimus page at Polar Bears International | <urn:uuid:d4cbc54c-3e22-41cf-83a9-55ca05bbdf97> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.digimorph.org/specimens/Ursus_maritimus/male/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929339 | 873 | 4.25 | 4 |
Apple is planning to move the assembly of some of its computers back from China to the US. In fact, it’s probably happened already: the new generation of iMacs, being shipped right now, have labels suggesting they were made in the States.
This might well raise a few eyebrows out there: after all, Apple has been synonymous with the manufacturing of tech products in China. It is perhaps the biggest brand to have its products put together in the Foxconn manufacturing megaplant in China.
And we all know how much cheaper workers are to employ in China than in the US – around 10 times cheaper, on a conservative basis. So, you might well ask, isn’t this decision likely to be a financial disaster? Can Apple really afford a ten-fold increase in costs? What on earth is Tim Cook doing?
The answer might take you by surprise. For the reality is that Apple’s products have never really been “Made in China” in the first place. Take the iPhone. The vast majority of the parts that make up an iPhone (or to be specific the iPhone 3G) come not from China but from, in descending order, Japan, Germany, Korea and the US. Most of these parts – the memory, the display, the processor – are shipped in to Foxconn from elsewhere.
All that really happens in China is the assembly of those bits and pieces into that finished product. As you can see, that manufacturing component is a tiny sliver of the actual value that goes into the manufacture cost (note, of course, that the bulk of the value for Apple still comes in the retail margins it can charge customers after all these manufacturing costs have been taken into account).
What are the consequences of this? Well, first, it’s far cheaper for Apple to manufacture in the US, or indeed anywhere else in the world, than might at first seem to be the case.* According to a paper from Yuqing Xing and Neal Detert Apple could assemble all of its iPhones in the US and even if you assumed a tenfold increase in its costs, bringing the total assembly cost to $68 per unit, the company would still be making a 50% profit margin, given that it would bring the total manufacture cost to $240, compared with the (then) retail price of $500.
Which raises the question of why it hasn’t happened sooner. The answer undoubtedly owes something to the price savings, and perhaps also something to the fact that it’s questionable as to whether the US would have the capacity in the near-term to create the kind of assembly juggernaut you see at Foxconn.
But given the controversy surrounding Foxconn in recent years, and its negative effect on the Apple brand, it’s more than feasible that the company might decide that sacrificing a few extra percentage points of margin is worth it if it prevents a customer backlash and lasting damage to its brand. I suspect it could move the assembly for most of its products back to the US, turning the conventional wisdom about globalisation on its head.
After all, just think how many positive PR points it would generate to be able to say you’re bringing back manufacturing jobs to Main Street America!
There’s another upshot which is of interest to economists. The way today’s balance of payments statistics work may result in the misattribution of trade to certain countries.
Trade figures basically attribute the full value of an export to the country which assembles it and sends it off on its merry way. Which, in the case of Apple products is, of course, China. The upshot is that the iPhone is responsible for billions of dollars worth of the official US trade deficit with China. However, if you were strictly only counting the added value created by each country along the way, the iPhone should, according to Xing and Detart, count as a net positive for the US trade account.
It highlights an ongoing problem with the international trade figures: that they do not necessarily tell the whole story about international trade. It may well be that the US doesn’t have as big a trade deficit (and hence current account deficit) as is widely thought. And, given that the UK makes some of the components that go into Apple products, the same might well apply to Britain.
* This does of course assume that the components in Apple’s other products come from a similarly wide range of countries as in the iPhone. This seems a pretty reasonable assumption, though you might like to look at the iFixit website for the most recent teardowns of their products. | <urn:uuid:d87d8f03-2d8d-41ac-b018-eb207bb66466> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.edmundconway.com/2012/12/the-end-of-made-in-china/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96427 | 951 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The life of a CME
About once per week when the Sun is relatively quiet, and two or three times a day at the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, a great bundle of plasma—far bigger than Earth—bursts from the Sun’s surface. This coronal mass ejection, or CME, accelerates through the corona in only a few hours. If it’s pointed at Earth, it can irradiate astronauts, disable the circuitry in satellites, knock out surface power grids, degrade the accuracy of the Global Positioning System by up to a factor of five, and paint the high-latitude sky with auroras. Even a CME emerging on the right-hand side of the Sun can affect our atmosphere, as some of the energetic particles loop around the spiral-shaped magnetic field embedded in the solar wind.
NCAR scientist Stanley Solomon took this unique photo of an aurora unfolding above NCAR's Mesa Laboratory on the evening of 20 November 2003. The aurora lasted over an hour with only minor variations. "It was an amazingly stable feature," says Solomon. The event capped a month-long string of unusually intense solar activity (see sidebar).
When CMEs were discovered by NASA’s pioneering human-staffed satellite Skylab in 1973, they immediately caught the interest of researchers. Like great clouds of smoke, they billowed far from the Sun’s surface into the outer corona, a region largely invisible to ground-based observing systems at that time. It was easy to imagine CMEs traveling further into space—even as far as Earth. However, it took until the 1990s to conclusively link CMEs to auroras and other Earth-based impacts.
“CMEs are at the heart of the really important plasma interactions we call space weather, and they’re so inherently interesting as well,” says Thomas Holzer. He’s a 30-year NCAR veteran and the leader of HAO’s Coronal Studies Group, part of the Solar Atmosphere and Heliosphere Section, led by Boon Chye Low.
Like tornadoes, CMEs tend to defy measurement. A CME unfolds too quickly for most instruments to do more than capture a few points in its violent life cycle. “They really challenge the cadence of our systems,” says Holzer. Satellites began to track CMEs in the 1980s on a regular basis, but they could see only CMEs that emerged sideways from the sun’s limb (i.e., perpendicular to Earth). It was impossible to spot and warn for the CMEs ejected Earthward from the front face of the Sun—the very ones that could cause major solar storms.
Things changed in the 1990s, as space- and ground-based systems began to infer the presence of CMEs across the entire Sun, by examining how they affect more intense radiation emitted below the corona, closer to the Sun’s surface. One of thos pioneering systems is still at work at Mauna Loa: NCAR’s chromospheric helium imaging photometer. Every three minutes, CHIP measures the absorption of helium light at a charactericstic frequency; changes in that absorption are linked to changes in the corona.
In tandem with other instruments elsewhere, CHIP helps give quick notice when a CME embarks from the Sun. If a solar storm appears to be in the offing, the NOAA Space Environment Center issues the celestial equivalent of a hurricane warning, giving people a day or two to batten down the hatches.
Along with serving as a first-alert system, CHIP is a fertile source of data for Holzer and other coronal analysts at NCAR. Holly Gilbert, for example, has been using CHIP data to connect several different kinds of waves that zip across the Sun. Right now, it appears that CMEs can trigger a fast-moving wave in the corona that, in turn, compresses the chromosphere below and stimulates a more slow-moving wave.
Meanwhile, Giuliana de Toma has been studying dim regions that appear in X-ray coronal images for a day or two after a CME. They’re interpreted as signs of transient coronal holes, temporary zones of lower density left in a CME’s wake. According to de Toma, the frequent images from CHIP will help to understand the evolution of these holes and, ultimately the CMEs that cause them. “We still don’t fully understand the origin and early development of CMEs,” says de Toma.
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | <urn:uuid:06a8d18c-d098-49e3-9090-1779f982a3db> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ucar.edu/communications/quarterly/winter03/solar2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935012 | 974 | 3.6875 | 4 |
December 5, 2010
Acidification Threatens Already Over-stressed Oceans
The world's oceans are facing far-reaching implications for its marine biodiversity and food security, due to changes in their chemistries not seen in more than sixty million years, according to a new study released by the United Nations on Thursday.
"Environmental Consequences of Ocean Acidification," published by the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), warns that some sea organisms including coral and shellfish will have an increasingly difficult time surviving, as acidification shrinks the minerals needed to form their skeletons."We are seeing an overall negative impact from ocean acidification directly on organisms and on some key ecosystems that help provide food for billions. We need to start thinking about the risk to food security," Carol Turley, from the UK's Plymouth Marine Laboratory, and lead author of the report, said in a statement.
Coral reefs provide shelter and food for nearly a quarter of all known marine fish species, according to the report, while more than one billion people rely on many of those same fish species as a key source of protein.
The increasing acidification is likely to affect the growth and structural integrity of tropical coral reef, and, coupled with ocean warming, could limit the habitats of crabs, mussels, and other shellfish with a rippling effect up and down the food chain.
The report, unveiled during the UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, states that about 25 percent of the world's CO2 emissions are currently being absorbed by the oceans, where they are turned into carbonic acid.
PH levels in oceans around the world have fallen by an average of 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution -- beginning in the 18th century. The report predicts that by the year 2100 ocean acidity will increase 150 percent, if the emissions continue to rise at the current rate.
Scientists say, however, that not all marine species will be affected negatively with the growing acidification in the oceans.
Adult lobsters may increase their shell-building as pH levels decline, as might brittle stars -- a close relative of starfish -- but at the cost of muscle formation.
"The ability, or inability, to build calcium-based skeletons may not be the only impact of acidification on the health and viability of an organism: brittle stars perhaps being a case in point," Turley said in a statement to CNN
"It is clearly not enough to look at a species. Scientists will need to study all parts of the life-cycle to see whether certain forms are more or less vulnerable," he added.
Scientists are more certain about the fate of photosynthetic organisms such as seagrasses, saying they are likely to benefit from rising acidification and that some creatures will simply adapt to the changing chemistry of the oceans.
The authors of the report said policy makers need to consider certain measures in fighting the loss of pH levels in the world's oceans, including rapid cuts to CO2 emissions and assessing the vulnerability of communities that rely on marine resources.
"Ocean acidification is yet another red flag being raised, carrying planetary health warnings about the uncontrolled growth in greenhouse gas emissions. It is a new and emerging piece in the scientific jigsaw puzzle, but one that is triggering rising concern," Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director, said in a statement.
On the Net:
- UN Environmental Program (UNEP)
- Report: Environmental Consequences of Ocean Acidification (pdf) | <urn:uuid:e7bf4634-27e9-4676-aaea-e90f815bbb4e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1960983/acidification_threatens_already_overstressed_oceans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949778 | 708 | 3.484375 | 3 |
After many years of devoting himself to God, in 1071, Stanislas, who was from
the Turzyana clan, was appointed Bishop of Krakow. At the time there was much
discontent amongst the populace because of the constant wars of King Boleslaw II
of Poland and Bishop Stanislas became a focal point of vocal opposition. In 1079
the king ordered the Bishop to be seized and put to death for his activities. In
1253 Stanislas was proclaimed a Saint and a Patron of Poland for his defence of
human rights and Christian teachings.
On the 8th of May, 1765, the Royal Order of St Stanislas was established by King
August Poniatowski, Stanislas II of Poland, with the heraldic motto “Praemiando
incitat” (by awarding encourage). After the third and last partition of the old
Polish Commonwealth between Russia, Austria and Prussia in 1795 the Order fell
into abeyance and remained without a Grand Master until 1809.
After the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw, the Elector and then King Frederick
Augustus I of Saxony became Duke of Warsaw on 7th of July, 1807. In 1809 he
became the 2nd Grand Master of the Order of St Stanislas and there was a revival
of the Order.
With the abdication of Frederick August on 22nd May, 1815, by a decision of the
Vienna Congress the greater part of the Duchy of Warsaw was ceded to the Russian
Empire as a Polish kingdom. The 3rd Grand Master, Alexander I, again revived the
Order on 1st December, 1815, and the 4th Grand Master, approved statutes of the
Order on 14th September, 1829. With the loss of polish autonomy to the Russian
Empire the Order of St Stanislas was incorporated into the Chapter of Russian
Imperial and Tsarist Orders, the 3rd to the 7th Grand Masters being Russian
At the beginning of the 20th century the Order of St Stanislas formed the
largest Order in Russia. Chevaliers fees were put at the disposal of the Chapter
and directed to good works, i.e. the care of wounded soldiers, the maintenance
of students in schools and institutions, and other charities
After the abdication of the 7th Grand Master, Tsar Nicholas .II the Council of
Peoples Deputies decreed on the 29th December, 1917, that all previously given
Orders and titles be abolished.
When the new Polish state was created after World War I a number of Orders were
created or re-established. However the Order of St Stanislas was not one of
them. Its place was taken by the new Order of Polonia Restituta with the
President of the Polish Republic automatically becoming a Chevalier 1st class
and Grand Master.
At the beginning of World War II the Government of the Polish Republic (in
exile) was formed in London and continued there until the restitution of
democracy in Poland in 1990.
During the period of exile Juliusz Nowina-Sokolnicki became President on 6th
April, 1972. On the 9th June, 1979, to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the
martyrdom of St Stanislas he decreed the re-establishment of the Order of St
Stanislas. The Statutes of the Order were approved on 11th November, 1984, with
stated goals to reward people for services “in the protection of Faith and human
rights for the good of the Polish people and State. Juliusz Nowina-Sokolnicki
took the position of 8th Grand Master and created the Grand Magistry of
Chevaliers of the Order of St Stanislas. With the restitution of democracy in
Poland, Nowina-Sokolnicki extracted the Order of St Stanislas from the list of
state decorations of the Polish Government and on the 15th September, 1990,
announced its “independence and sovereignty” as an international Order devoted
to the ideal of brotherhood of humanity irrespective of religion or race. The
Order developed wide ranging charitable activities and created a system of Grand
Priories, Priories and Commanderies in 33 countries around the world.
However there was a schism in the Polish Government in exile in 1954 and since
1972 Nowina-Sokolnicki’s position as President has been denied by Stanislaw
Ostrowski, Edward Raczynski, Kazimierz Sabbatt and Rysard Kaczorowski in favour
of another candidate, August Zaleski. The 1st elected President of the
democratic Poland, Lech Walesa, was presented with the Presidential insignia and
seals of the Grand Master of the Orders of the White Eagle and Polonia Restituta
0n the 22nd December, 1990, by Ryszard Kaczorowski and not Nowina-Sokolnicki.
There were further problems in the Order when Nowina-Sokolnicki declared the
Grand Mastership of the Order to be the hereditary prerogative of his family,
and on the 1st January, 1997, the National Chapter announce the dismissal of
Nowina-Sokolnicki and the election of Count Kazimierz Dworak-Biziel-Dworakowski,
a resident of the USA, as the 8th Grand Master. At the same time the Catholic
Church of Poland recognised Marek Kwiatkowski as Grand Master of the Order and
he headed an alternative Chapter.
The issue is further complicated by the view that with the abolition of
communism the Order reverts back to the dynastic line of the house of Romanov,
and on the 23rd December, 2003, on the occasion of her jubilee the Grand Duchess
Maria Vladimirovna Romanova invested several persons as chevaliers of the Orders
of St Anna and St Stanislas.
On the 16th May, 2004, a number of Grand Priors from various Countries met in
Kiev, Ukraine, and decided to split from Nowina-Sokolnicki’s Order and form the
International Order of St Stanislas. We do not claim to be the authenticate
original Order, only that we follow their basic principles and precepts. We
recognise that there are several Orders of St. Stanislas and are happy to
welcome members of any of them to our functions and acknowledge that each in
their own way do good works.
Although originally a Christian Order membership is now open to any male or
female over the age of 21, (18 by agreement of the Grand Prior), who profess a
belief in a Supreme Being and is a believer in the fundamental principles of | <urn:uuid:6d97c5b9-264a-4fe6-9608-61bf1ee4132d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ststanislas.eu/En/History.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946783 | 1,452 | 2.953125 | 3 |
The first Labor Day parade was held in September 1882; thousands of workers marched and rallied in Union Square for better workplace conditions and pay.
A century later, the first Wigstock was held in September 1985. One thousand spectators came to Tompkins Square Park to see founder Lady Bunny and other drag queens perform in sequins, sky-high platforms, and big wigs at the park’s bandshell.
Wigstock’s genesis was a little less serious than Labor Day’s: It was conceived by Lady Bunny and friends after a drunken night in 1984 at Avenue A’s Pyramid Club.
An instant, outrageous hit, Wigstock became a Labor Day tradition. By 1990, the crowd swelled to 10,000. If you were stuck in the city that weekend with no friends inviting you out to the Hamptons or upstate, you could always head downtown and get a kick out of the crowds and performers spilling over into the streets.
When the park closed for renovations in 1991, Wigstock moved to Union Square, and in 1994, it relocated to the Christopher Street Piers.
Until 2001, that is, when the last Wigstock took place. In subsequent years it was absorbed into the Howl! festival in the East Village. But it seems that 2009 will be Wigstock-less.
Here’s more Wigstock info and ephemera.
Tags: Christopher Street Piers, drag queens in New York City, East Village in the 1980s, Labor Day parade New York City, Labor Day traditions in New York, Lady Bunny, Pyramid Club Avenue A, Tompkins Square Park, Union Square, Wigstock | <urn:uuid:45749b14-0df6-486b-bdd6-a3792c309381> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/wigstock-new-yorks-other-labor-day-tradition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946632 | 350 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The good news, however, is that a slight majority of Americans say that faith continues to be a major factor to them personally, with 54 percent of respondents saying that religion is “very important” in their lives, “down slightly from the past two decades, but roughly equal with levels measured in the 1980s.”
The impact of faith in the lives of Americans, however, is coming increasingly from sources other than church. According to Gallup, only 61 percent of Americans now claim membership in a church or synagogue, the lowest percentage since Gallup has asked the question, compared to a high in 1947, when 74 percent of Americans said they were church members.
While religious influence in America peaked in 1957, when 69 percent of the population said faith was an important factor in society, Gallup noted that the numbers began changing more dramatically in the turbulent 1960s, and have fluctuated since. “By 1970, in the midst of the protests over the Vietnam War and general social upheaval, a record 75 percent of Americans said religion was losing influence in American society,” noted the pollster.
But during the Reagan years, when moral values and faith were in vogue and public servants displayed them prominently, “a plurality of Americans returned to the view that religion was increasing its influence.” With the Clinton years Americans returned to an overall attitude of pessimism, and it wasn’t until after the momentous tragedy of September 11, 2001 that there was another shift that demonstrated the positive impact of faith on the nation’s spiritual landscape.
However, as the decade rolled on, the nation’s solidarity behind religious faith once more began to wane, so that by 2009 some 70 percent of Americans felt that the influence of religious faith was decreasing overall.
Traditionally the assumption has been that the influence of faith in America increases when Republicans hold sway in public office. But Gallup’s research shows that history does not bear this out. “Although views that religion was increasing its influence were highest during the Republican administrations of Eisenhower, Reagan, and George W. Bush,” noted the pollster, “this political connection does not appear to be the primary explanatory factor. Views on the increasing influence of religion were quite low during the Republican administrations of Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush.”
Rather, explained Gallup, Americans tend to “take into account a wide variety of social, political, and economic factors” in gauging how religious they think their nation is as a whole, with the political landscape being just one element in their consideration.
As for the personal impact of religion, Gallup said the trends over the years have not shown the same fluctuation as those for religion’s public influence. “While almost all measures show that Americans were more religious in the 1940s and 1950s than in recent decades,” the survey summarizes, “Americans appear to be as personally religious now as they were in the late 1970s and 1980s.” | <urn:uuid:60ce990a-34eb-4b9d-b9fb-efc2ac244ac4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/family/item/659-survey-finds-religious-influence-waning-in-america | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00119-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976673 | 618 | 2.625 | 3 |
When Harvard graduate and Heritage Foundation study co-author Jason Richwine asserted that Hispanic immigrants and their descendants have lower intelligence quotients (IQs) than whites do — and that immigration policy should be based on IQ — much of the ensuing furor focused on whether that was true. No one questioned whether IQ is a reliable, or even useful, measure of intelligence.
However, cognitive scientists now know that the brain is not a coffee mug that is either more- or less-full of intelligence. Instead, there are many different kinds of intelligence, and genius in one area does not necessarily predict genius in another. Helping to illustrate this concept is a highly sophisticated animal that is probably asleep on your sofa: the domestic dog.
Over a century ago, French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the first standardized intelligence test that eventually became the IQ test. Even Binet stressed that his test did not encompass the full range and diversity of intelligence. American psychologist Henry H. Goddard translated Binet’s test, and it quickly became the most widely used standardized test in the United States. [10 Odd Facts About the Brain]
In an eerie precursor to Richwine’s thesis, back in 1912, Goddard stated in his book, “The Kallikak Family: A study in the Heredity of Feeble Mindedness,” that "feeble-mindedness is hereditary and transmitted as surely as any other character … Segregation through colonization seems, in the present state of our knowledge, to be the ideal and perfectly satisfactory method. Sterilization may be accepted as a makeshift, as a help to solve this problem."
Members of the eugenics movement used that philosophy as justification for the forced sterilization of thousands of African-American women on the basis of their IQ.
Today, people are still disproportionately judged on their IQ — and by their performance on other standardized tests. These tests are popular because they predict — on average — scholastic success. However, they do not even come close to measuring a person's full capabilities or entire skill set. For example, no standardized tests assess empathy, creativity or perseverance.
Since co-authoring "The Genius of Dogs," people often ask us whether a dog is smarter than a chimpanzee, or if a border collie is smarter than a poodle. We always say it’s like asking if a hammer is a better tool than a screwdriver — each tool is designed to solve a certain type of problem. The same analogy applies to measuring the intelligence of different species, and even individuals within a species.
When we test for intelligence in animals, instead of pass or fail, we try to discover the strategies each animal uses that make them successful. Instead of the glass being full or empty, there are different kinds of intelligence that are often supported by different neurobiological systems. The question is not which animal is smartest, but which cognitive strategies they rely on, and why. [Doggy Daydreams: Brain Scans Reveal Fido's Thoughts]
The genius of dogs was not immediately obvious, which is why cognitive scientists ignored them for most of the 20th century. After all, how smart can an animal be if it chases its own tail and drinks out of a toilet?
Dogs have evolved a specific kind of intelligence: the ability to flexibly read human gestures. Human infants begin to do this when they are 9 months old — they start paying attention to what adults are trying to communicate when they point. This early communication skill is the building block for all forms of culture, including language. That dogs exhibit a skill thought to be a building block of human culture is remarkable. Even our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, can’t read our gestures as well as dogs can.
This extraordinary ability was probably an important catalyst for a relationship that has lasted thousands of years. Dogs are now the most successful large mammal on the planet — besides humans. And yet when you compare dogs to wolves in several problem-solving tasks, dogs look downright vapid. But if dogs see humans solve these same problems, dogs get it right away. It’s when dogs partner with humans that they become extraordinary.
Temple Grandin, professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University, is the author of several bestselling books, including the recent Different…Not Less, and has done more for animal welfare and autism awareness than almost anyone. Grandin is autistic and struggles to read people’s emotions and social cues. Our society would be at a loss without Grandin, and all the other people who do not conform to a single-dimensional idea of intelligence that is now over a century old.
Decades of the best cognitive and neurobiological research do not support the dangerously simplistic view being politicized by the Heritage Foundation. Our brains are not coffee mugs. Instead, there are many different types of intelligence.
Not all types of intelligence correlate, and individuals use a variety of strategies to navigate the world. With this scientifically correct characterization of intelligence, diversity is strength, and welcoming different perspectives should be the priority.
Vanessa Woods is a research scientist and Brian Hare is an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. They are the authors of The Genius of Dogs and the founders of Dognition.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This article was originally published on LiveScience.com.
Do you want to be a guest columnist? Send your pitch to firstname.lastname@example.org with "I want to be a guest columnist" in the headline. Plus, visit our guest column archive to find a variety of topics and opinions. | <urn:uuid:c68de4ad-21a3-41af-9b1d-5b90f553b41e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mnn.com/home-blog/guest-columnist/blogs/dogs-show-iq-tests-arent-so-smart | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954259 | 1,164 | 2.890625 | 3 |
High Stakes vs. Democracy
by Ken Jones
In the current fever over using high-stakes testing for accountability, little discussion has been given to how this strategy affects the democratic purposes of schools. Most of the time, test scores are treated as ends in themselves, as if they can stand alone as clear indicators of school quality and health.
What if we took seriously the idea that schools exist to support and uphold our democracy? What would our vision for the classroom entail? And how would high stakes testing affect that vision?
One place that sheds light on this issue is Kentucky. In 1990, the state passed a sweeping school reform act called the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). (See Examiner, ). At the center of this reform was a set of goals for students that addressed the needs of a democracy for preparing well-educated citizens, including focuses on thinking and problem solving, real-life applications, self-sufficiency, team membership, and interdisciplinary integration.
A statewide assessment system that would be “primarily performance-based” was called for in order to determine how well students were achieving these new educational targets. High standards meant going beyond the kind of static and fragmented knowledge typically measured by standardized tests. The stated intention was that this new form of assessment would “drive” curriculum and instruction in classrooms towards new and improved learning.
The vision expressed in state documents was of a classroom where committed teachers would engage students in meaningful and relevant learning experiences; critical thinking and depth of understanding would be valued and cultivated; and the roles of teachers and students would be characterized by the informed use of judgment, decision-making, and responsibility. Local school councils, consisting of teachers, parents, and school administrators, were empowered to make curricular decisions that would lead to greater responsiveness to the diverse needs of students. All necessary ingredients for the feeding of a democracy.
To give this reform “teeth,” high-stakes accountability for schools was connected to the state assessment, complete with rewards and sanctions for teachers. State authorities acknowledged that this might lead to “teaching to the test,” but asserted that this wouldn’t be so bad because the test would be more high-level and authentic and would prompt desirable changes in the classroom.
Kentucky thus became the first state to link high stakes to performance assessments as a means of school accountability. Now, ten years later, what do we know about this strategy? While the Kentucky Department of Education celebrates KERA successes in terms of scores on the state test, there is a more troubling story underneath the scores. This has to do with how the prerequisites of high stakes have lead inexorably to standardization and disempowerment. What we have seen is not the flowering of local curriculum leading to responsiveness to students, but a wholesale regimented responsiveness to the state. Moreover, the state test itself has changed shape so that it is no longer “primarily performance-based.”
At the heart of this loss is the requirement that high-stakes tests adhere to established psychometric principles of validity and reliability. When tests dictate whether teachers will lose their jobs or students will graduate, it is essential that the tests be able to stand up in a court of law, for surely these decisions will be contested by the inevitable “casualties.” It is this pressure that forces state departments to take a safe approach to testing, despite all best intentions about classroom visions.
Content validity requires that the assessment align with the curriculum. And yet, how can this happen when the state is in charge of the assessment and the schools are in charge of the curriculum? In Kentucky, it has meant that the schools, held highly accountable by the mandated test, have demanded that the state define the curriculum to be tested. Over the years, we have seen greater and greater articulation from the state. Now there is a very precise, and extensive, core content for assessment published by the state. Almost universally, schools spend a great deal of time “aligning” their curriculum to this state document to ensure that they are providing their students with the proper instruction. Thus, opportunity to learn has come to mean teaching to the test. So much for local empowerment.
Reliability, in the context of performance assessment, refers to the inter-rater consistency in scoring open-ended responses such as portfolios, performance events, and open response items. Scoring such items requires human judgment. This is a problem encountered when such assessments are used on a large scale for high stakes. It takes a great deal of time and professional development to form the widespread understanding of performance standards necessary to achieve consensus about “how good is good enough.” The immediate need for high reliability coefficients has been the demise of performance assessments in Kentucky. Gone are the performance events and the math portfolios; back are the multiple-choice questions, more oriented to objective answers than are the open-response questions. The writing portfolio, the only element of the state assessment which has demonstrated positive effects in classroom practice, has been retained, but has been scaled back. The vision has been lost.
The moral to this story is that the high-stakes use of tests dictates standardization. A democratic vision for the classroom will be undermined by the control taken by the state when it uses testing as a weapon. Let us not be deceived. It is the state that is empowered through high stakes, not local schools, parents, and teachers. This movement does little to foster the kinds of classroom activities, decisions, and judgments that we envision for democratic education. It is time for a new generation of school accountability that better suits a democracy.
– Ken Jones currently works as the mathematics specialist for Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, KY. He is co-editor, with Betty Lou Whitford, of Accountability, Assessment, and Teacher Commitment: Lessons from Kentucky's Reform Efforts (SUNY Press, 2000). Available from CUP Services, (607) 277-2211; paperback, $21.95; hardcover, $65.50.
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- Other Resources | <urn:uuid:29ce54d1-07ff-4a3c-947d-719b42049185> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fairtest.org/high-stakes-vs-democracy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00007-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967773 | 1,258 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Q: Why is eliminating maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT) a priority for UNICEF?
GASSE: In some ways, it is an ethical issue. Those affected by tetanus are often populations in remote places in the poorest countries. It costs more to go to the end of the world. Thus, these people are still not reached by routine immunization and often have little access to health care services. They are the least important populations for politicians and often the official policy is to deny the problem.
Secondly, elimination of MNT is something completely within our grasp. Tetanus is a completely preventable disease. Tetanus toxoid (TT) vaccine is extremely effective and has been around for 80 years. We also have more flexibility with the vaccine because it does not require such a rigid cold chain - we can travel a long distance with tetanus toxoid and it can stand greater fluctuations in temperature.
Q: What is the global impact of MNT?
GASSE: In the early 1980s, there were 800,000 neonatal tetanus deaths and 70,000 maternal deaths from tetanus in 160 developing countries. In 2001, tetanus killed 200,000 newborns and 30,000 mothers. These numbers may be even higher because tetanus is an invisible killer: many deaths occur at home and go unreported.
Q: What role is UNICEF playing in the global effort to eliminate tetanus by 2005?
GASSE: Tetanus will always be around, so you can never stop immunizing. Our efforts are aimed at finding a viable way to fund and deliver vaccines on a routine basis. UNICEF is very involved in the procurement and delivery of the vaccines. We guarantee the cold chain, educate health workers, and offer technical support. Routine immunization and improved hygiene during childbirth are critical to eliminating the disease. I think all countries should be autonomous eventually, but for the time being, UNICEF is there to support them.
Q: What are the challenges?
GASSE: For tetanus, one of the biggest challenges is creating demand – mobilizing communities to get immunizations. We can go to a village with vaccines and nobody will come. We are often dealing with populations who are illiterate or uninformed about tetanus. There is also a very deep mystical association with tetanus that can make it difficult for communities to appreciate the casual relationship between birthing practices and the disease.
Some communities see the convulsions caused by tetanus and think the child is possessed. Or they blame it on something the family has done. In some parts of Sudan, they call tetanus the “black bird.” So many children were dying of tetanus in one area that they even had a special cemetery. After the immunizers came, the disease disappeared. Then the communities said, “The black bird has flown away.”
Q: How does UNICEF work to mobilize communities to immunize?
GASSE: We have learned we must target key decision makers. Often it will be the religious leaders, the husband, or even the mother-in-law. We must get acceptance. This is particularly critical for maternal immunizations because we immunize women of childbearing age. Communities are often suspicious that women are going to be sterilized. Often we must first convince a community leader. For example, if the leader allows his unmarried daughter to be immunized, this can be very effective.
Q: How does UNICEF reach women and children in the most remote areas?
GASSE: It can be very difficult with our current staffing. One of our biggest constraints is finding enough health workers, in terms of quantity and gender. In some countries, women refuse to be immunized by male health workers. Other women stay home and health staff must go to their homes. All supplemental TT campaigns conducted in high-risk areas to women of childbearing age are with auto-disable syringes (injection devices that block the plunger after a single use) or pre-fitted, single-dose injection devices, thus preventing re-use and any re-infection of blood-borne diseases.
We hope that pre-filled devices such as UniJect will allow us to increase the number of vaccinators. The UniJect is a little bubble of plastic with a small needle. It is much easier to administer than a traditional injection and we can train students and others to perform vaccinations. The device can’t be used twice so there is no danger of spreading disease through reuse. It will also be helpful in overcoming resistance to vaccinations because of fear of needles. Some women tell us, “Oh, no, spiritually I cannot accept this vaccination.” However, the real reason is that they fear the injection.
Q: Where are the MNT trouble spots?
GASSE: Basically countries with the lowest rate of immunization coverage have the biggest problem. Today, 54 countries are still problematic. Usually those most at risk are countries at war or those with civil unrest such as Afghanistan, Angola, Southern Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Due to conflict, these countries have little or no infrastructure and poor levels of literacy.
Q: What are the MNT success stories?
GASSE: There are many countries that have achieved elimination with their own resources, most without being recognized for their achievement. It is a silent success against a silent killer. I have been amazed by the progress made in Indonesia, India and Bangladesh. In 1990, Indonesia ranked second in the world for tetanus. Today Indonesia has achieved elimination of 80 per cent in 360 districts. In 1987, Bangladesh had the third highest number of estimated tetanus cases/ and only seven per cent of the women received protection. Today that number is 85 per cent. It is a fantastic program, where workers from Bangladesh, paid only pennies, go out to very remote areas. There the immunization program has been called a miracle. | <urn:uuid:70f0c318-9d35-43b9-b9a4-9a103b2c8daf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.unicef.org/immunization/tetanus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96054 | 1,227 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Easy Hungarian Vocabulary Builder
This book helps you build your Hungarian vocabulary quickly and easily by identifying key words and words which are already familiar to English speakers. A variety of memory aids are also given to help remember difficult Hungarian words. It is suitable for upper beginner and intermediate level learners who understand English. More
This book is aimed at fluent English speakers who want to quickly and easily build their Hungarian vocabulary. It sets out three types of words that will help achieve this goal:
Familiar words: these are words which closely resemble their English counterparts. There are many Hungarian words you already know – without even being aware of it!
Key words: these are the words which, once learnt, will open up a wide range of related words,
Memory aid words: words that can be learnt using a variety of memory ‘tricks’.
Written by a native English speaker who understands many of the problems that students face in learning Hungarian, and edited by a Hungarian academic from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, this book is a must for all upper beginner/intermediate level students of Hungarian. | <urn:uuid:d58c9500-4f8e-4e17-bee7-61a23ac73bac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/286946 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951889 | 227 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Kettlecorn is a form of popcorn which is made with both salt and a sweetener, creating a very distinctive flavor. This dish originated in Colonial America, where it became quite popular, and it spread to some parts of Europe, especially Germany. Kettlecorn actually briefly fell out of favor in the United States before experiencing a resurgence in the late 20th century, perhaps as part of an overall renewed interest in traditional American foods. Kettlecorn can be found at many fairs and social events, and it can also be made at home, either from scratch or from popcorn making kits.
Popcorn is an ancient New World treat. Archaeological expeditions have uncovered the traces of popcorn popping in settlements which are thousands of years old, suggesting that Native Americans were quite familiar with the properties of popping corn. When colonists first reached the Americas, they were undoubtedly introduced to popcorn at a fairly early stage, and by all accounts it was a very popular novelty food, which was also served as a snack at theater and music performances. | <urn:uuid:d13e15ef-21a3-463e-bb81-8f0ba16737b3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webepoppin.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987222 | 207 | 2.84375 | 3 |
How Does Acupuncture Work?
The theory and practice of acupuncture is based on Oriental medicine, a comprehensive natural health care system that has been used in Asian countries for thousands of years to preserve health, diagnose, treat and prevent illness. Acupuncture treats conditions by stimulating “acu-points” found at specific locations on the surface of the body. Acupuncturists stimulate the acu-points by inserting very thin needles through the skin to produce physiological effects. Other methods are also used to stimulate acu-points, such as heat or finger-pressure.
The general theory of acupuncture is that proper physiological function and health depend on the circulation of nutrients, substances, and energy, called qi (pronounced “chee”), through a network of “channels” or “meridians.” This network connects every organ and part of the body, providing balance, regulation and coordination of physiological processes. Pain and ill-health result when the flow of qi through the body is disrupted or blocked by things such as, disease, pathogens, trauma, injuries, surgeries, and medications, as well as lifestyle factors such as overwork, poor diet, emotions, lack of rest and stress.
Stimulation of the appropriate acu-points through acupuncture treatments helps to restore sufficient, continuous and even flow of qi and other nutrients throughout the body. Restoring proper flow of qi and nutrients restores health and balance to the body, while relieving pain and other symptoms. The acupuncturist uses a sophisticated and complex system of diagnostic methods that take into consideration the person as a whole, discerning the body’s pattern of disharmony rather than isolated symptoms.
Acupuncture and Oriental medicine are one of the newest primary health care professions in California. The potential benefits of acupuncture are widely recognized, and it is being increasingly integrated with mainstream health care. Since the 1970’s, when acupuncture and Oriental medicine first became available in the United States, more than 15 million Americans have tried it. The risk of side effects is low and the potential benefits are high. Knowing what to expect from acupuncture will help patients get the most benefit from treatments.
Is Acupuncture Painful?
Unlike hypodermic needles, acupuncture needles are hair-thin and flexible, permitting a nearly painless insertion. You may feel a minimal amount of discomfort as the needles pass through the skin. Some patients report feeling a sensation of excitement, while others feel relaxed.
Is Acupuncture Safe
Yes, it is very safe when practiced by a licensed acupuncturist. We use only sterile and disposable needles. | <urn:uuid:37cdb81e-5eb2-4bcc-9d46-3bc80b0c516d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cozyacupuncture.com/therapies/acupuncture | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942102 | 541 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Revolutionary ALMA Image Reveals Planetary Genesis
Astronomers’ dream has just come true. The new image from ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, reveals extraordinarily fine detail that has never been seen before in the planet-forming disk around a young star. These are the first observations that have used ALMA in its near-final configuration and the sharpest pictures ever made at submillimeter wavelengths. The new results are an enormous step forward in the observation of how protoplanetary disks develop and how planets form.
Observations with ALMA
ALMA has obtained its most detailed image yet showing the structure of the disk around HL Tauri , a million-year-old Sun-like star located approximately 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Taurus. The image exceeds all expectations and reveals a series of concentric and bright rings, separated by gaps.
“When we first saw this image we were astounded at the spectacular level of detail. HL Tauri is no more than a million years old, yet already its disk appears to be full of forming planets. This one image alone will revolutionize theories of planet formation,” explained Catherine Vlahakis, ALMA Deputy Program Scientist and Lead Program Scientist for the ALMA Long Baseline Campaign.
Such a resolution can only be achieved with the long baseline capabilities of ALMA and provides astronomers with new information that is impossible to collect with any other facility, even the Hubble Space Telescope. “The logistics and infrastructure required to place antennas at such distant locations required an unprecedented coordinated effort for the international expert team of engineers and scientists” said ALMA Director, Pierre Cox. “These long baselines fulfill one of ALMA’s major objectives and mark an impressive technological, scientific and engineering milestone”, celebrated Cox.
Stars like HL Tauri and our own Sun form within clouds of gas and dust that collapse under gravity. Over time, the surrounding dust particles stick together, growing into sand, pebbles, and larger-size rocks, which eventually settle into a thin disk where asteroids, comets, and planets form. Once these planetary bodies acquire enough mass, they dramatically reshape the structure of the disk, fashioning rings and gaps as the planets sweep their orbits clear of debris and shepherd dust and gas into tighter and more confined zones.
In the visible, HL Tauri is partly obscured by the massive cloud of dust and gas that surrounds it. ALMA operates in such a way that it can see through the cloud and study the processes right at the center. This new ALMA image provides the clearest evidence to date that not only does this process occur, but also that it is faster than previously thought.
The investigation of these protoplanetary disks is essential to our understanding of how Earth formed in the Solar System. Observing the first stages of planet formation around HL Tauri may show us how our own planetary system may have looked more than four billion years ago, when it formed.
“I had never dreamed that at this early phase of operations ALMA would image such a vivid picture showing the formation of a planetary system” told Dr. Masahiko Hayashi, the Director General of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, who is an astronomer specializing in star and planet formation. “I learned the Kyoto Model of solar system formation when I was an undergraduate, but never imagined that I would see in my lifetime observations actually revealing such details of the planetary system formation process. I’m now confident that we can move to the next step, the search for signs of life in the Universe. I believe we could find other life-bearing worlds while I am still in this world.”
Since September 2014 ALMA has been observing the Universe using its longest ever baselines, with antennas separated by up to 15 kilometers. This Long Baseline Campaign will continue until 1 December 2014. The baseline is the distance between two of the antennas in the array. As a comparison, other facilities operating at millimeter wavelengths provide antennas separated by no more than two kilometers. Future observations at shorter wavelengths will achieve even higher image sharpness.
The structures are seen with a resolution of just five times the distance from the Sun to the Earth. This corresponds to an angular resolution of about 35 milliarcseconds -- better than what is routinely achieved with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Kyoto Model is a prototypical planet formation model proposed by Prof. Chushiro Hayashi at Kyoto University, in which planets are formed in gas and dust disk with the mass of 0.01-0.04 solar masses.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.
This article is including a link to a article for kids.
The Universe Awareness website provides children through the world with fun, easy to understand news and educational materials about the Universe. These help kids understand the size and beauty of the Universe. The “Space Scoop” section of Universe Awareness contains articles written for kids explaining current astronomy news. A Space Scoop is available for this article. | <urn:uuid:3eb8e9fa-d91d-40f3-9eb5-7d64a5707b12> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nao.ac.jp/en/news/science/2014/20141107-alma.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933611 | 1,249 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Ecology is a beautiful thing. Organismal interactions are multifaceted to a degree very few, if any, of us can fully understand. Luckily, some are simple and interesting enough that even an intern can write about them during rain delays from fieldwork. Most folks that know anything about Kirtland's warblers know first about their strong dependence on Jack Pine trees. The next ecologically-relevant factoid most recollect is their battle against the dreaded cowbirds. Since we study birds here, and not trees, I'm opting to write about the latter.
Brown-headed cowbirds are nest parasites—they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. While this behavior isn't unique among North American birds, cowbirds are our only obligate nest parasites. They never make their own nests and are entirely dependent upon other birds to provide parental care to their young.
Some ducks, coots, and others are facultative nest parasites, making nests of their own to go along with the eggs they slip into the nests of neighbors. It's an odd behavior, but perfectly reasonable viewed through the lens of natural selection. If you evolved to make use of grubs kicked up by buffalo and had to fly miles back to your nest every few minutes to keep your kids happy, you'd hire a nanny too.
You may notice a problem here. There are no bison in Michigan and bison don't use Jack Pine forests. Well, we humans have a special knack for redecorating our surroundings at the behest of our neighbors. The expansion of agriculture on this continent by European settlers brought the cowbirds knocking at the Kirtland's warblers' doors.
A healthy majority of nests were parasitized by cowbirds in the 1960s. A cowbird egg takes 12 days to hatch while a Kirtland's egg takes 14. If the baby Kirtland's warblers still manage to hatch, they're at an extreme disadvantage having to compete with the much bigger cowbird nestlings for food. Coupled with the lack of forest fires creating room for fresh Jack Pine habitat, this drove the Kirtland's warblers to near extinction. So, what was the solution?
In order to restore the Kirtland's back to safe levels, the cowbirds had to be removed, and that is accomplished with cowbird traps. How does one trap a cowbird? Well, If you put 5 or 6 male and female cowbirds in a cage, give them food and water, and let them sing, other cowbirds join the party. If you adjust the openings in the top of the cage so that they're big enough for a cowbird to squeeze through, the cowbirds fall in and have a lot more trouble finding their way out. At the very least, the new cowbirds stick around long enough for someone to check a trap each day and remove them. Basically, we use their own kind to lure them in and keep them away from our warblers.
A few thousand cowbirds are removed each year, and while that may seem like a lot, I can assure you cowbirds are doing just fine. Working with vireos last year in Massachusetts, I ran into my fair share of cowbirds, but I didn't exactly bump into many (any) Kirtland's warblers. The good news is, through roughly 50 nests we've found this year, we haven't bumped into a single cowbird egg yet.
It's easy to view this as a triumph of wildlife management and conservation, and, by all means, it certainly is, but it is important to remember how we got here—we opened the door for the cowbirds to wreak havoc. Kirtland's warblers may be off the proverbial cliff hanging over extinction, but we had to put a lot of work into saving these birds. Cowbirds are just doing what any species would presented with a fitness-oriented opportunity. To view them as the bad guy, is a tad misguided. We'd do to make sure that the wonderful players in the game of ecology, molded by generations that evolved over thousands of years, don't disappear in a flash.
On the next episode…How to radio track a fledgling and look like you're contacting aliens at the same time. Stay tuned. | <urn:uuid:88d1e2c9-f17d-49f7-9014-ffcd0b05eb11> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migratorybirds/blog/?id=377 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977127 | 874 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Researchers funded in part by the National MS Society found evidence that a blood-clotting protein called fibrinogen may play an early role in damage to axons (nerve fibers) in a model of MS-like disease in mice. Axonal damage underlies the progressive disability experienced by people with MS. If confirmed, the findings reveal early events that may trigger nervous system damage in a mouse model of MS, and point to possible new targets for new therapies to protect against that damage in people with MS. Drs. Dimitrios Davalos, Katerina Akassoglou (University of California, San Francisco) and colleagues report their findings in Nature (advanced online publication, November 27, 2012
In a healthy immune system, brain cells called “microglia” help to keep the brain and spinal cord safe from infectious agents. For reasons that are not yet clear, microglia switch to the offense in the immune attack in MS, serving up triggering molecules to immune T cells and spurring on the attack. Early in the development of MS and in the MS-like disease EAE, there is disruption in the blood-brain barrier (a system of blood vessels that controls what can enter the brain from the bloodstream).
In previous studies, Dr. Akassoglou and colleagues have shown that fibrinogen, a blood-clotting factor, leaks into the brain during the immune attack, and directly activates microglia. By inhibiting fibrinogen after the first attack in mice with the MS-like disease EAE, they were able to decrease the activation of microglia, and subsequent damage to nerve fiber-ensheathing myelin (a main target of the MS attack) diminished dramatically.
The team integrates novel technology, for example, two-photon microscopy, a technique that uses fluorescence to provide vivid, real-time detail of living tissue in action. Dr. Akassoglou’s team, which includes current and former National MS Society postdoctoral research fellows Drs. Dimitrios Davalos, Jae Kyu Ryu, and Natacha Le Moan, developed a way to adapt two-photon microscopy to watch immune cells interacting with nervous system cells and blood cells.
The team traced early events involved in myelin and axon damage in mice with EAE, and the contributions of fibrinogen in these events. They reported evidence that leakage of fibrinogen through the blood-brain barrier early in the course of EAE correlated with sites of axon damage, and that, when stimulated with fibrinogen, microglia cluster near where the blood-brain barrier is disrupted and where myelin and axon damage are located. The team also showed evidence that fibrinogen is required for the damage to occur.
Fibrinogen is the first protein, among many that leak across the disrupted blood-brain barrier during the course of EAE, shown to stimulate microglia. The authors also noted that fibrinogen induced the release by microglia of “reactive oxygen species,” which are molecules that are active in the immune attack and have been found to directly damage axons. Finally, they identified a surface docking site on microglia, called “CD11b/CD18,” which appears to be how fibrinogen interacts with microglia to exert its nerve-damaging effects.
Taken together, the team’s studies reveal early events that may trigger nervous system damage in a mouse model of MS, and point to a crucial role for the blood clotting protein fibrinogen in stimulating inflammation that leads to that damage. If these early studies are confirmed, targeting the interaction of fibrinogen and CD11b/CD18 may prove to be a novel strategy for stopping MS damage in its tracks.
about efforts to stop MS. | <urn:uuid:fddd4c05-86d4-43b9-9b18-09fa791f3ad9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nationalmssociety.org/About-the-Society/News/Researchers-co-funded-by-the-National-MS-Society-d | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00141-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944499 | 803 | 2.671875 | 3 |
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Tubers of Helianthus tuberosus introduced into Europe from Canada by Samuel de Champlain in the seventeenth century and originally called Canadian artichoke; the origin of the name Jerusalem is from the Italian girasole (sunflower). A 170-g portion is a good source of copper; a source of vitamin B1; provides 1.7 g of dietary fibre; supplies 30 kcal (125 kJ). Much of the carbohydrate is the non-starch polysaccharide inulin.
Sunflower (Helianthus tuberosus) native to North America and grown for its edible tubers. The aboveground part of the plant is a coarse, usually multibranched, frost-tender perennial, 7 – 10 ft (2 – 3 m) tall. The numerous showy flower heads have yellow ray flowers and yellow, brownish, or purplish disk flowers. The underground tubers vary in shape, size, and colour. Jerusalem artichoke is popular as a cooked vegetable in Europe and has long been cultivated in France as livestock feed. In the U.S. it is rarely cultivated.
From the Columbia Encyclopedia:
Jerusalem artichoke, tuberous-rooted perennial (Helianthus tuberosus) of the family Asteraceae (aster family), native to North America, where it was early cultivated by the indigenous inhabitants. In this particular case the name Jerusalem is a corruption of girasole [turning toward the sun], the Italian name for sunflower, of which this plant is one species. The edible tubers are somewhat potatolike, but the carbohydrate present is inulin rather than starch, and the flavor resembles that of artichokes. Jerusalem artichoke is more favored as a food plant in Europe (where it was introduced in 1616) and China than in North America, where it is most frequently grown as stock feed. The inulin is valuable also as a source of fructose for diabetics. Jerusalem artichokes are classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Asterales, family Asteraceae.
Sunchoke Nutritional Value Guide: (Raw)
Quantity - 1 Cup
Energy - 115 Calories
Carbohydrates - 26 (grams)
Protein - 3 (grams)
Cholesterol - 0 (milligrams)
Weight - 150 (grams)
Fat - 0 (grams)
Saturated Fat 0 (grams)
It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 1.5–3 m tall.
The leaves are opposite on the lower part of the stem, alternate higher up; the larger leaves on the lower stem are broad ovoid-acute and can be up to 30 cm long, the higher leaves smaller and narrower; they have a rough, hairy texture.
The flowers are yellow, produced in flowerheads 5–10 cm diameter, with 10–20 ray florets, and are thought to smell like milk chocolate.
The tubers are gnarly and uneven, typically 7.5–10 cm long and 3–5 cm thick, and vaguely resembling ginger root, with a crisp texture when raw; they vary in color from pale brown to white, red or purple.
The tubers, which resemble ginger root, have a consistency much like potatoes, and in their raw form have a similar taste to potatoes except they are crunchier and sweeter with a slightly nutty taste. The carbohydrates give the tubers a tendency to become soft and mushy if boiled, so it is best to steam them lightly to preserve their texture. The inulin is not well digested by some people, leading in some cases to flatulence and gastric pain. Gerard's Herbal, printed in 1621, quotes the English planter John Goodyer on Jerusalem artichokes:
"which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men."
Species: H. tuberosus
Binomial name Helianthus tuberosus
This is not a medical site. Please consult your physician before using anything mentioned on these pages.
This is not a medical site. Please consult your physician before using or applying anything mentioned on these pages. We urge you to use this diet plan with your doctors supervision.
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You can keep track of your daily, weekly or monthly blood sugar test results with this handy spreadsheet. As you enter in your test numbers a graph will automatically tell you what your morning and afternoon readings are. Also, you will get a chart that will tell you your blood sugar averages. This is great becuase it's the long-term sugar results that are important.
Be sure to print your spreadsheet and take it to your next doctor appointment. Give them a copy to put into your records!
Note: You will need Excel or another program to open this spreadsheet. | <urn:uuid:98976501-d21d-442d-af0b-2202915b4475> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sunchoke.org/history.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00035-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915735 | 1,050 | 3.0625 | 3 |
What is a co-op?
A cooperative, or co-op, is a business owned by the members, controlled by the members, for the benefit of the members. Often, co-ops are created by people outside of the main power structure to improve access to goods and services.
There are several types of co-ops:
- Worker co-ops (sometimes called employee co-ops) are businesses formed, owned and controlled by the workers.
- Producer co-ops are formed by people who produce goods and services, such as crafts and food. These co-ops may collectively purchase goods and services for their businesses and/or market their own goods.
- Consumer co-ops purchase goods and services such as groceries, heating fuel, financial services and housing for their members.
Co-ops usually share some features:
- Profits are distributed to the members in proportion to the use of goods and services.
- They are democratically controlled by a one-member, one-vote system. Each member has equal decision-making authority.
- They are designed to provide members with goods and services at a reasonable cost, not to profit individual members or to make a lot of money.
- They adhere to the International Co-operative Alliance Principles.
In New Hampshire, ROC-NH™ helps residents who live in manufactured-home (sometimes called mobile home) communities form consumer cooperatives to collectively purchase their communities. The New Hampshire Community Loan Fund may then provide some of the money for the purchase, and ROC-NH provides ongoing training and technical assistance to helps co-ops manage their communities as both a business and a democratically run organization.
Learn more about how resident-owned communities are governed.
Learn more about how committees work in resident-owned communities.
Learn more about the rights and responsibilities of members of resident-owned communities.
ROC-NH™ is a program of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, Inc. and a ROC USA® Certified Technical Assistance Provider. ROC-NH is a registered service mark of ROC USA, LLC. | <urn:uuid:4d89e640-dc59-469c-8c88-2bd237c6a339> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.communityloanfund.org/how-we-help/roc-nh/how-we-can-help-you/co-op-living/what-is-a-co-op | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973664 | 427 | 3.125 | 3 |
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The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
Increasing pressure from economic development and population growth has resulted in the degradation of ecosystems around the world and the loss of the essential services that they provide. Understanding the linkages between ecosystem service provisioning and human well-being is crucial for the establishment of effective environmental and economic development policy. Presenting new insights into the relationship between ecosystem services and livelihoods in developing countries, this book takes up the challenge of assessing these links to demonstrate their importance in policy development. It pays special attention to innovative management opportunities that improve local livelihoods and alleviate poverty while enhancing ecosystem protection. Based on eighteen studies in more than twenty developing countries, the authors explore the role of biodiversity-, marine-, forest-, water- and land-related ecosystem services, making this an invaluable contribution to research on the role of ecosystems in supporting the livelihoods of the poor around the world. | <urn:uuid:94f9981a-65c4-46fd-8c45-9aa5920ec720> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ecampus.com/natures-wealth-economics-ecosystem/bk/9781107698048 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918064 | 264 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Garden cities have arisen as a remedy for this evil, carefully planned dwelling-places wherein some thought is given to beauty and picturesque surroundings, to plots for gardens, and to the comfort of the fortunate citizens. But some garden cities are garden only in name. Cheap villas surrounded by unsightly fields that have been spoilt and robbed of all beauty, with here and there unsightly heaps of rubbish and refuse, only delude themselves and other people by calling themselves garden cities. Too often there is no attempt at beauty. Cheapness and speedy construction are all that their makers strive for.
These growing cities, ever increasing, ever enclosing fresh victims in their hideous maw, work other ills. They require much food, and they need water. Water must be found and conveyed to them. This has been no easy task for many corporations. For many years the city of Liverpool drew its supply from Rivington, a range of hills near Bolton-le-Moors, where there were lakes and where they could construct others. Little harm was done there; but the city grew and the supply was insufficient. Other sources had to be found and tapped. They found one in Wales. Their eyes fell on the Lake Vyrnwy, and believed that they found what they sought. But that, too, could not supply the millions of gallons that Liverpool needed. They found that the whole vale of Llanwddyn must be embraced. A gigantic dam must be made at the lower end of the valley, and the whole vale converted into one great lake. But there were villages in the vale, rural homes and habitations, churches and chapels, and over five hundred people who lived therein and must be turned out. And now the whole valley is a lake. Homes and churches lie beneath the waves, and the graves of the “women that sleep,” of the rude forefathers of the hamlet, of bairns and dear ones are overwhelmed by the pitiless waters. It is all very deplorable.
And now it seems that the same thing must take place again: but this time it is an English valley that is concerned, and the people are the country folk of North Hampshire. There is a beautiful valley not far from Kingsclere and Newbury, surrounded by lovely hills covered with woodland. In this valley in a quiet little village appropriately called Woodlands, formed about half a century ago out of the | <urn:uuid:0103aff0-74b7-49fe-9460-d599de71101d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/14742/196.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00102-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979087 | 501 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission, Minute by Minute
Every minute, a young woman becomes newly infected with HIV. That is a staggering and sobering statistic to contemplate, particularly when coupled with the goal of preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV and ultimately achieving an AIDS-free generation.
Globally, HIV is the leading cause of death in women of reproductive age. Young women aged 15-24 are the most vulnerable to HIV infection—making up 22 percent of all new infections, twice as high as the infection rate in young men.
According to UNAIDS, young women’s lower economic and socio-cultural status in many resource-limited countries means they are less able to advocate for safe sex methods or access HIV prevention and treatment services. In addition, women make up two-thirds of the world’s 796 million illiterate adults, putting them at a greater disadvantage for accessing information to protect their health, and the health of their children. And in many countries, customary practices and gender roles prevent women from having a greater say in how health plans can protect them from HIV and other health issues like maternal mortality.
To help keep mothers healthy and children free of HIV, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) works with national governments and other partners to promote policies that help women access HIV and maternal and child health services. EGPAF and its affiliates also work in communities to ensure women and their families have continued access to information and peer support, which helps ensure they return to clinics for lifesaving HIV services and care.
Despite the obstacles that women face in accessing care to keep themselves and their children healthy, we are reaching more women and children every day, and are making significant strides toward the elimination of pediatric HIV/AIDS. Since 2001, EGPAF and its affiliates have provided more than 17 million women with services to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies. And, according to a recent UNAIDS report, new HIV infections among children have decreased by 52 percent since 2001.
Continued momentum toward creating an AIDS-free generation will require sustainable health access for young women and mothers around the world, and EGPAF will continue to help strengthen and build the capacity of national health systems to achieve this goal.
For more information on HIV and its effect on women, check out this infographic.
Michelle Betton is EGPAF’s Associate Communications Officer, based in Washington, D.C. | <urn:uuid:266431bc-a6ca-4d7c-820d-ba2abfd06f85> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pedaids.org/blog/entry/preventing-mother-to-child-transmission-minute-by-minute | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954026 | 507 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The Journal of the American Medical Association has published a new study that has claimed that respiratory infections in healthy adults have a direct association with a biological marker's length. Sheldon Cohen, Ph. D. and colleagues at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, had conducted the study.
They said that the ones with telomeres shorter in lengths in some cells were at higher risks of getting an upper respiratory infection. Telomere is a structure at the chromosome's end, the report has found in the meantime. These individuals were also administered a cold virus. In comparison to them, the risks were low in the partakers with longer telomeres.
As many as 152 healthy people were recruited and they were given nasal drops containing rhinovirus 39 in their own staying room. Some 69% developed respiratory infections.
It has been informed that telomeres tend to become short in length when cells divide. During cell division, telomeres act as protective caps that stop genomic DNA erosion. But their shortening in the white blood cells
(leukocytes) means weak reaction of antibody to vaccines. Also, the same hints immunocompetece.
However, it is yet to be found if the leukocyte telomeres' length affects healthy younger people with acute disease. "Shorter leukocyte telomere length also is associated with aging-related illness and death from conditions with immune system involvement, including infectious diseases, cancer, and cardiovascular disease", said the team.
- Fire threatens entire city in Alberta
- Authorities order evacuation of entire city in Alberta due to wildfire
- Mitel Networks Corp of Canada to Buy Polycom Inc for Almost $2 Billion
- Reportedly Bombardier Inc. is Nearing a Deal with Delta for C Series Jetliners
- Review shows alcohol has no net health benefits | <urn:uuid:9b04cf1a-d7cd-4f03-9d6e-02c91503e516> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://topnews.us/content/253405-researchers-link-biological-marker-length-respiratory-infections | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969229 | 371 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Few nations have a more tragic 20th Century history than does Poland. Invaded and split in half by both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany in 1939, then the remainder seized by Germany two years later (which triggered WW II), and finally a repressive Communist regime until 1989. Poland once had 3,500,000 Jews, most poor, but some had become middle and even upper class. The Nazis, aided by Poland's own endemic anti-Semitism, murdered a stunning 97% of Poland's Jews. It was no accident that most of the major death camps, such as Auschwitz, Belzec, and Treblinka were established in Poland. Less than 120,000 Jews survived to the liberation in 1945, most of whom had fled to Russia. But Polish anti-Semitism was so ingrained that even after the Nazis were gone, there was a pogrom in 1946 in Kielce, a small village that resulted in at least 37 Jews killed. Consequently the great majority of the few surviving Polish Jews fled to the West or to Israel. But of those that remained, a substantial number joined the Polish Communist Party because of their socialist ideals. They were prominent in the party until the 1960's when many were purged in concert with similar purges in Soviet Russia. Even as late as 1968, the Polish government fostered an anti-Zionist (read anti-Semitic) program that drove nearly all of the remaining Jews out of the country. So the history of the Jews in Poland is very sad, and as more than one historian has said, "All of Poland is a Jewish graveyard".
Rarely, a Jewish baby or young child was rescued or given by its parents to an orphanage with the child raised as a Catholic. In many cases the parents and other relatives were killed before the war's end, and in some cases the children were never told of their heritage. In a few cases the Church would not release the child to relatives. Yet most of these children survived when otherwise they would have been murdered by the Nazis.
Pawel Pawlikowski is an accomplished Polish director whose best known film (in America) is My Summer of Love (2004), but his The Woman in the Fifth (2011) has also screened here. Pawlikowski's latest film, Ida, is no less than a masterpiece. It is set in Poland, in the 1960's, when the country was firmly in the suffocating grip of the communist party. Poland was poor and had only begun to recover from the devastation of the war. The film opens with Anna, a young novice with her traditional wimple and habit, painting a sculpture of Jesus. Three other novices help her carry it out through the snow to the center of a courtyard and place it on a pedestal. Then we follow the novices as they go about their daily convent life. The convent scenes seem both modern and medieval, the medieval accentuated by their spartan interiors. The scenes of the nuns and novices eating in silence, with only the clinking of their spoons in their soup bowls, speaks volumes about their outwardly austere life. Anna, who came to the convent from an orphanage, has an aunt, Wanda, who has never responded to any of Anna's letters. Anna is about to take her vows but the mother superior tells her that it would be best to visit her aunt before totally committing herself to life as a nun. Anna travels to Wanda's apartment and is stunned to hear that she, Anna, is in fact a Jew. Wanda tells Anna the story and soon the two take a road trip to the rural village where Anna's parents may have been killed. All of this in only the first half hour of the film.
Pawlikowski has chosen to shoot in black and white, which emphasizes the poverty of Polish life, the gloom of winter, and the frozen countryside. It gives a timeless character to the story, and adds greatly to its power. Nearly every frame is beautiful and you imagine you are watching a 50 year old film. Some of the images look straight out of Bergman, such as a long shot of the farmer, Anna, and Wanda walking across a large field into the woods. The acting is absolutely outstanding, with a noted Polish actress playing Wanda, but Anna is played by someone who has never acted professionally. This reinforces the opposites of the two characters: Wanda, world wisely, cynical, and hard drinking, and Anna, fresh, devoted to God, and inexperienced in most things. The film has no music soundtrack. The only music heard is that being played or heard in the background. Simply put, Ida is a masterpiece. Its quiet power and haunting images are unforgettable. This is one of the best films that I have seen this year and it will likely be the Polish nomination for best foreign film at the Academy Awards. See this on the big screen! Playing time: 80 minutes. Just opened at the Clay (SF), the Rafael, and the Albany Twin. Ciao, Ian
Photos: Courtesy of "Ida" website | <urn:uuid:ed201877-72fe-42e6-8a02-01f18a5a03c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lasplash.com/publish/Film_106/ida-movie-review.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983659 | 1,037 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Some time ago, an inquisitive mind inquired of me as to whether being lactose intolerant could affect the sufferer’s tolerance of wine that has undergone malolactic fermentation. Fair question. “Lactose” and “lactic” are obviously related, and thinking about an intolerance to the “lactic” in wine is a sensible leap with everyone and their brother speculating over what causes wine headaches and the like (derivatory of the overarching food intolerance fad, I expect.)
The good and the bad news is that lactose intolerance has no bearing whatsoever on the ability to digest malolactically-fermented wine. Good news, as the lactose-intolerant among us can drink wine without reservation. Bad news, as the lactose-intolerant among us are equally as enlightened as everyone else as far as identifying a cause of the wily wine headache, i.e. still in the dark.
Short answer: lactose intolerance is unrelated to the ability to tolerate wine that has undergone malolactic fermentation.
Longer answer: Most people who react poorly to lactose suffer from an intolerance, not an allergy. Allergies are inappropriate immune responses to specific epitopes, which can be thought of as molecular shapes. An intolerance, on the other hand, isn’t necessarily an immune response. Lactose intolerance is caused by a deficiency in the enzyme responsible for breaking down lactose in the small intestine. Since we can only absorb lactose after it has been broken down into its component parts – glucose and galactose – a lactase deficiency means that undigested lactose builds up in the intestines to cause bloating, diarrhea, gas, and other discomforts. Unlike lactose, lactic acid can be absorbed without first being acted upon by the lactase enzyme.
Incidentally, even if lactic acid absorption was somehow related to lactose absorption, quantity would be a pertinent consideration. Milk contains 2-8% lactose, i.e. relatively a whole lot, while wine contains much less than 1% lactic acid.
In conclusion, then, the lactic acid in wine should be of no concern to most people who need to avoid lactose. A glass of wine makes a far friendlier companion to a good dinner than a glass of milk, don’t you think? | <urn:uuid:935efb68-e3a7-45f5-b527-5c7531126c57> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/wellredwhiteandrose/2011/05/24/lactose-lactic-acid-lactase-or-the-lack-thereof-and-why-wine-is-still-okay/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9513 | 492 | 2.609375 | 3 |
March is #womenshistorymonth and we're celebrating #womeninthebible. - Live The Bible Community
After Jesus rose up early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to the ones who had been with him, who were mourning and weeping.
Mark 16:9 CEB
From the #CEBStudyBible: "Mary Magdalene: a devoted follower, one of whom later discovers the empty tomb (Luke 24:10). seven demons: a sign of her misery, not her wickedness (see Luke 8:30; 11:26)." | <urn:uuid:b6db71d7-2ddd-4e15-9302-0a51173035cf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.christianpost.com/news/womens-history-month-live-the-bible-mary-magdalene-meme-116826/print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970583 | 140 | 2.53125 | 3 |
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When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, most of the world saw a menace to humanity. But IBM saw Nazi Germany as a lucrative trading partner. Its president, Thomas J. Watson, engineered a strategic business alliance between IBM and the Reich, beginning in the first days of the Hitler regime and continuing right through World War II.
This alliance catapulted Nazi Germany to become IBM's most important customer outside the U.S. IBM and the Nazis jointly designed, and IBM exclusively produced, technological solutions that enabled Hitler to accelerate and in many ways automate key aspects of his persecution of Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others the Nazis considered enemies.
Custom-designed, IBM-produced punch cards, sorted by IBM machines leased to the Nazis, helped organize and manage the initial identification and social expulsion of Jews and others, the confiscation of their property, their ghettoization, their deportation, and, ultimately, even their extermination.
Recently discovered Nazi documents and Polish eyewitness testimony make clear that IBM's alliance with the Third Reich went far beyond its German subsidiary. A key factor in the Holocaust in Poland was IBM technology provided directly through a special wartime Polish subsidiary reporting to IBM New York, mainly to its headquarters at 590 Madison Avenue.
And that's how the trains to Auschwitz ran on time.
Thousands of IBM documents reviewed for the first edition of my book 'IBM and the Holocaust,' published early last year and focused mainly on IBM's German subsidiary, revealed vigorous efforts to preserve IBM's monopoly in the Nazi market and increase contracts to meet wartime sales quotas.
Since then, continued research and interviews have uncovered details, described here for the first time, of IBM's work for the Nazis in Poland through the separate subsidiary and of the Polish subsidiary's direct contact with IBM officials on Madison Avenue.
Documents were obtained from IBM files shipped to NYU for processing and from scores of other archival sources here and abroad. Not a single sentence written by IBM personnel has been discovered in any of the documents questioning the morality of automating the Third Reich, even when headlines proclaimed the mass murder of Jews.
IBM's German subsidiary was Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, known by the acronym Dehomag. (Herman Hollerith was the German American who first automated U.S. census information in the late 19th century and founded the company which became IBM. Hollerith's name became synonymous with the machines and the Nazi "departments" that operated them.)
Watson tightly managed the lucrative German operation, traveling to Berlin at least twice annually from 1933 until 1939 to personally supervise Dehomag. Major German correspondence was translated for review by the New York office and often for Watson's personal comment. Before big new accounts were accepted, Watson had to assent. For deniability, he insisted on making direct verbal instructions to his German managers the rule rather than exception-even in place of major contracts. Once, when German managers wanted to paint a corridor, they awaited his specific permission. Watson's auditors continuously tracked the source and status of every reichsmark and pfennig-in one typical case, exchanging numerous transatlantic letters over the disposition of just a few dollars. Not infrequently, Dehomag managers objected to his "domination." Understandably, IBM's lawyers and managers in Berlin personally updated Watson constantly, and generally signed their reports, "Awaiting your further instructions."
No machines were sold to the Nazis-only leased. IBM was the sole source of all punch cards and spare parts, and it serviced the machines on-site-whether at Dachau or in the heart of Berlin-either directly or through its authorized dealer network or field trainees. There were no universal punch cards. Each series was custom-designed by IBM engineers not only to capture the information going in, but also to tabulate the information the Nazis wanted to come out.
IBM constantly updated its machinery and applications for the Nazis. For example, one series of punch cards was designed to record religion, national origin, and mother tongue, but by creating special columns and rows for Jew, Polish language, Polish nationality, the fur trade as an occupation, and then Berlin, Nazis could quickly cross-tabulate, at the rate of 25,000 cards per hour, exactly how many Berlin furriers were Jews of Polish extraction. Railroad cars, which could take two weeks to locate and route, could be swiftly dispatched in just 48 hours by means of a vast network of punch-card machines. Indeed, IBM services coursed through the entire German infrastructure in Europe.
The IBM Response Asked about IBM's Polish subsidiary's involvement with the Nazis, IBM spokeswoman Carol Makovich in New York repeated the same official statement she issued more than a year ago: "IBM does not have much information about this period." Asked a dozen times, Makovich simply repeated the phrase.
The war broke out on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Germany annexed northwestern Poland; the remaining Polish territory in Nazi hands was treated as "occupied" and called the "General Government." That annexed northwestern quadrant was serviced by IBM's German subsidiary, Dehomag, mainly to handle the payrolls of Silesian coal mines and heavy industry. At about that time, IBM New York established a special subsidiary, Watson Business Machines, to deal with the General Government. It remained completely legal for IBM to service the Third Reich until just before America entered the war in December 1941.
The savaging of Poland was no secret to IBM executives. From the outset, worldwide headlines reported barbarous massacres, rapes, purposeful starvation, systematic deportations, and the resulting unchecked epidemics. As early as September 13, 1939, The New York Times reported the Reich's determination to make Polish Jewry disappear, a headline declaring, "Nazis Hint Purge of Jews in Poland." A subhead added, "3,000,000 Population Involved." The article quoted the German government's plan for the "removal of the Polish Jewish population from the European domain." The Times added, "How . . . the 'removal' of Jews from Poland [can be achieved] without their extermination . . . is not explained."
Germany had plans. Polish Jews, during a sequence of sudden relocations, were to be catalogued for further action in a massive cascade of repetitive censuses and registrations with up-to-date information being instantly available to various Nazi planning agencies and occupation offices. How much usable forced labor for armament factories could they generate? How many thousands would die of starvation each month? A spectrum of Nazi census, registration, and statistical tabulation was performed on custom-designed IBM punch-card programs and machinery.
On September 9, 1939, Dehomag general manager Hermann Rottke wrote directly to Watson in New York, asking for advanced equipment. Rottke reminded Watson, "During your last visit in Berlin at the beginning of July, you made the kind offer to me that you might be willing to furnish the German company machines from Endicott [an IBM factory near Binghamton] in order to shorten our long delivery terms. . . . You have complied with this request, for which I thank you very much, and have added that in cases of urgent need, I may make use of other American machines. . . . You will understand that under today's conditions, a certain need has arisen for such machines, which we do not build as yet in Germany. Therefore, I should like to make use of your kind offer and ask you to leave with the German company . . . the alphabetic tabulating machines. . . . "
Eighteen days later, a vanquished Warsaw formally capitulated. The next day, September 28, IBM's general manager in Geneva, J.W. Schotte, telephoned Berlin to confirm Watson's permission for the new equipment.
Meanwhile, Reinhard Heydrich, chief of Heinrich Himmler's Security Service, the SD, had already circulated a top-secret letter to the chiefs of his Einsatzgruppen, which evolved into mobile killing units. Heydrich's September 21 memo, titled "The Jewish Question in the Occupied Territory," laid out a plan of population control through a sequence of strategic censuses and registrations. It began, "I would like to point out once more that the total measures planned (i.e., the final aim) are to be kept strictly secret." First, Jews were to be relocated to so-called concentration towns at "either railroad junctions or at least on a railway." Addressing the zone from east of Kraków to the former Czechoslovakian-Polish border, Heydrich directed, "Within this territory, only a temporary census of Jews need be taken." Heydrich demanded that "the chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen report to me continually regarding . . . the census of Jews in their districts. . . . "
Shortly thereafter, Heydrich sent a follow-up cable to his occupying forces in Poland, Upper Silesia, and Czechoslovakia, outlining how a new December 17 census would escalate the process from mere identification and cataloguing to deportation and execution. Heydrich's memo entitled "Evacuation of the New Eastern Provinces" decreed:
"The evacuation of Poles and Jews in the new Eastern Provinces will be conducted by the Security Police. . . . The census documents provide the basis for the evacuation. All persons in the new provinces possess a copy. The census form is the temporary identification card giving permission to stay. Therefore, all persons have to hand over the card before deportation. . . . Anyone caught without this card is subject to possible execution. . . . "
Quantifying and organizing the deportation of millions of people from various regions across Eastern Europe could take years using pencils and paper. Relying upon the lightning speed of Hollerith machines, it took just days. Heydrich assured, "That means the large-scale evacuation can begin no sooner than around January 1, 1940." Nazi Germany employed only one method for conducting a census: IBM punch-card processes, each one designed for the specific census.
In Nazi Poland, railroads constituted about 95 percent of the IBM subsidiary's business, using as many as 21 million punch cards annually. Watson Business Machines was headquartered at Kreuz 23 in Warsaw. And one of its important customer sites, newly discovered since the first edition of my book was published a year ago, was the Hollerith department of Polish Railways, at 22 Pawia Street in Kraków. This office kept tabs on all trains in the General Government, including those that sent Jews to their death in Auschwitz.
Leon Krzemieniecki is probably the only man still living who worked in that Hollerith department. It must be emphasized that Krzemieniecki did not understand any of the details of the genocidal train destinations. His duties required tabulating information on all trains, from ordinary passenger to freight trains, but only after their arrival.
The high-security five-room office, guarded by armed railway police, was equipped with 15 punchers, two sorters, and a tabulator "bigger than a sofa." Fifteen Polish women punched the cards and loaded the sorters. Three German nationals supervised the office, overseeing the final tabulations and summary statistics in great secrecy. Handfuls of printouts were reduced to a small envelope of summary data, which was then delivered to a secret destination. Truckloads of the preliminary printouts were then regularly burned, along with the spent cards, Krzemieniecki told me in an interview.
As a forced laborer, Krzemieniecki was compelled to work as a "sorter and tabulator" 10 hours per day for two years. He never realized that his work involved the transportation of Jews to gas chambers.
"I only know that this very modern equipment made possible the control of all the railway traffic in the General Government," he said.
Krzemieniecki recalled that an "outside technician," who spoke German and Polish and "did not work for the railroad," was almost constantly on-site to keep the machines running, performing major maintenance monthly.
IBM's tailored railroad-management programs, several million custom-designed punch cards printed at IBM's print shop at 6 Rymarska Street, across from the Warsaw Ghetto, and the railway's leased machines were under the New York-controlled subsidiary in Warsaw, not the German subsidiary, Dehomag. The distinction is important. Since the disclosures about IBM's involvement in the Holocaust first surfaced in February 2001, the company has continually pointed to supposed lack of control of its German subsidiary. But Watson Business Machines was established in Poland by IBM New York itself, at the time of Germany's invasion.
"I knew they were not German machines," recalled Krzemieniecki. "The labels were in English. . . . The person maintaining and repairing the machines spread the diagrams out sometimes. The language of the diagrams of those machines was only in English."
I asked Krzemieniecki if the machine logo plates were in German, Polish, or English. He answered, "English. It said, 'Business Machines.' " I asked, "Do you mean 'International Business Machines'?" Krzemieniecki replied, "No, 'Watson Business Machines.' "
Dwarfing the railroad operation in Poland described by Krzemieniecki was a massive Hollerith statistical center at 24 Murner Street in Kraków, staffed by more than 500 punching and tabulating employees and equipped with dozens of machines. New research has uncovered the existence of a previously unknown Berlin agency, the Central Office for Foreign Statistics and Foreign Country Research, which continuously received detailed data from the Kraków statistical center.
By late 1939, the Reich's Jewish-population statistics wizard, Fritz Arlt, had been appointed head of the Population and Welfare Administration of the General Government. A Hollerith expert and colleague of Adolf Eichmann, Arlt edited his own statistical publication, Political Information Service of the General Government, which featured such data as Jews per square meter, with projections of decrease from forced labor and starvation.
"We can count on the mortality of some subjugated groups," one Arlt article asserted. "These include babies and those over the age of 65, as well as those who are basically weak and ill in all other age groups."
The data-hungry Nazis created an expanded Statistics Office in Kraków in 1940. The expansion was dependent on more leased machines, spare parts, company technicians, and a guaranteed continued supply of millions of additional IBM cards. IBM's European general manager, Werner Lier, visited Berlin in early October 1941 to oversee IBM New York's deployment of machines in Poland and other countries. In two detailed reports, written from Berlin and sent to Watson, as well as to other senior staff in New York, Lier reported moving a small group of Polish machines into Romania for the Jewish census there. The Polish machines would soon be replaced by others.
The expanded Statistics Office assured Berlin in a November 30, 1941, report that its Hollerith operation would employ equipment more modern than the old IBM machinery found in most pre-war Polish data agencies, thus allowing the Nazis to launch a plethora of "large-scale censuses." Also planned was a long list of "continuous statistical surveys," including those for population, domestic migration, and causes of death. Moreover, regular surveys of food and agriculture were "coupled with summary surveys of the population and ethnic groups." Tabulating food supplies against ethnic numbers allowed the Nazis to ration caloric intake as they subjected the Jewish community to starvation.
The Statistics Office's report concluded, "Our work is just beginning to bear fruit."
Once the U.S. Entered the war in December 1941, Germany appointed a Nazi devoted to IBM, Hermann Fellinger, as enemy-property custodian. He maintained the original staff and managers of Watson Business Machines, keeping it productive for the Reich and profitable for IBM. The subsidiary now reported to IBM's Geneva office, and from there to New York. The company was not looted, its leased machines were not seized. "Royalties" were remitted to IBM through Geneva. Lease payments and profits were preserved in special accounts. After the war, IBM recovered all its Polish profits and machines.
Since the war, IBM, having left Madison Avenue for new headquarters in suburban Armonk, has obstructed, or refused to cooperate with, virtually every major independent author writing about its history, according to numerous published introductions, prefaces, and acknowledgments.
But silence cannot alter the historical documentation. A tangle of subsidiaries throughout Europe helped IBM reap the benefits of its partnership with Nazi Germany. After all, "business" was IBM's middle name.
Reprinted from Village Voice for Fair Use Only
Edwin Black is the author of "IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation" (Crown Books, 2001, and Three Rivers Press, 2002), just released in paperback with new information. It can be purchased by going to http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609808990/qid=1017245312/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_67_1/104-3447553-7176714
1. On the involvement of Prescott Bush and George
Herbert Walker, grandfather and great-grandfather of the
current US President, along with Allen and John Foster
Dulles, in helping finance the Nazis and setting up an
intelligence apparatus for them in the US, see 'Nazis in
2. After World War II, Allen Dulles saved and
recruited thousands of members of the Nazi's European
spying-&-butchery apparatus into his newly created
Central Intelligence Agency. This is discussed in 'Worst Kept
Secrets of a Bumbling Bear,' by Jared Israel at
3. In the early 1990s the NATO
countries welcomed a 'new democracy,' the secessionist
state of Croatia. In fact, it was modeled on the
Independent State of Croatia formed under Nazi guidance
during World War II and responsible for creating the
first Nazi death camp, at Jasenovac, where hundreds of
thousands of human beings, mainly Serbian farmers, were
slaughtered in ways that stunned even the Nazis. See 'Meet The Nazis The CIA Married: The Croatian
Ustashi,' by Petar Makara and
Jared Israel at
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Fundamentals of Literature Teacher's Edition teaches the process of literary analysis, enabling your students to interpret and evaluate literature in light of biblical truth. Readings offer instruction in six literary elements: conflict, character, theme, structure, point of view, and moral tone. Included is an English translation of Edmond Rostand's drama Cyrano de Bergerac. The updated Teacher's Edition includes reduced student pages and offers teaching resources for encouraging critical thinking skills and practicing literary analysis. It supplies class discussion questions, writing activities, and supplemental activities, and answers to student text questions. | <urn:uuid:1bef5ef3-c4d7-4368-9aea-5c852e2dfcd3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bjupress.com/product/181313 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902868 | 115 | 3.78125 | 4 |
Doing What’s Best for the Greatest Number of Cats
Tree House is part of a growing number of shelters who are promoting Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) as the most effective way to control the stray and feral population of cats.
What is Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)?
Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is a humane sterilization method used to reduce the number of feral cats. Stray and feral cats are humanely trapped and evaluated by a colony caregiver. Friendly strays and young kittens are good candidates for socialization and possible admission to a shelter. Once this evaluation has been made, the cats are brought to Tree House or another participating clinic to be sterilized, vaccinated and ear-tipped. Ear-tipping is an effective way to identify a sterilized feral cat in a managed colony. After the surgery, healthy adult feral cats will be returned to their familiar habitat under the supervision of the caregiver.
For more than 40 years Tree House has been caring exclusively for sick, injured and abused stray cats - cats that often had no other chance at a good life - but despite our best efforts and those of other shelters and animal welfare agencies around the country, the number of stray and feral cats is still not steadily decreasing as it should. Many animal welfare agencies estimate the number of feral cats in this country to be in the tens of millions. Because feral cats breed at a much faster rate than we can socialize them, getting ahead of the overpopulation problem through adoption alone is not a realistic solution. Trying to socialize a feral cat is not always possible, and not usually in the best interest of the cat. Therefore, admission into the shelter environment may not result in a better quality of life for the cat. Truly feral cats have lived their entire lives without direct human contact, other than feeding and monitoring from afar by a human caregiver. Feral cats’ survival instincts tell them to be wary of people and of confinement, so being caged in an effort to socialize them can often harm a cat’s physical and mental health despite the best intentions of the rescuer. Of course, trap and kill is never an acceptable answer either. Feral cats have a right to live. Aside from this fundamental point, statistics have proven that it costs more to trap and euthanize cats than it does to trap and sterilize them.
Therefore, the best way to promote the well-being of feral cats is to help prevent the behaviors associated with mating and giving birth to endless litters of kittens. This cycle of reproduction is the most harmful element affecting homeless cats in our communities, and this is why after many years of hard work, shelters like Tree House are still overcrowded and cannot accommodate all of the animals who need our help.
What we can do
In order to find homes for the thousands of cats in Chicagoland alone, we must continue to find a way to decrease the number of births of all cats, especially strays and ferals. For many years, your donations have helped us provide low-cost spay and neuter surgeries for low-income pet guardians and for rescued strays and feral cats. In 2009, we were able to do something revolutionary by opening our low-cost spay/neuter clinic at our Bucktown Branch at 1629 N. Ashland Avenue. At the Clinic, we offer spay and neuter packages for $30 for feral cats that include spay/neuter surgery, rabies and FVRCP vaccinations, parasite treatment, ear cleaning, and post-surgery pain medication. But unfortunately this price is less than it costs us to perform the surgery, so we need continual funding to make these surgeries available at such a low cost. Make a life-saving donation. Please sponsor one or more spay or neuter surgeries today. | <urn:uuid:d47eef22-f612-4f70-87ed-c1ea0d576bca> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.treehouseanimals.org/site/PageServer?pagename=programs_trap_neuter_return | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933696 | 790 | 2.875 | 3 |
There were only three small Florida regiments at Gettysburg, represented by the three stars on the right piece of granite, or plinth. The regiiments were part of Perry’s Brigade, Anderson’s Division, A.P. Hill’s Third Corps. The monument is located on Seminary Ridge along West Confederate Avenue. This view was taken from the east facing west at approximately 4:30 PM on Thursday, May 8, 2008.
In the early 1960s, around the centennial of the Civil War, some southern states decided it would be a good idea to erect monuments at Gettysburg and other Civil War battlefields. It appears that the job was rushed in order to get the monuments up during the celebration period of 1961-1965. The monuments are not notable, except for being square pieces of granite put together in the shape of a memorial. States that contributed monuments at this time included Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas. The rain was beginning to fall when the Gettysburg Daily visited the Florida monument on Thursday afternoon.
Perry’s Florida Brigade, under the command of David Lang made two charges across the area in the background of this photograph. The woods in the background are the Alexander Spangler Woods. One attack was on July 2nd, and the other on July 3rd as part of the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Assault/Longstreet’s Assault/Pickett’s Charge. The monument claims that the battle with 700 men and suffered 445 casualties, or 64%. Busey and Martin’s book on Gettysburg claims the brigade began the battle with 739 men, and suffered 343 casualties, for 46.4%. This view was taken from the west facing east at approximately 4:30 PM on Thursday, May 8, 2008.
There were 18 states representing the United States at Gettysburg, plus the United States Regular army troops. The Confederacy was represented by 12 states at the battle. Therefore 31 states/regulars were present. The 739 men that Florida had at Gettysburg placed the state 28th in overall rank. Their 46.4% casualties tied them for third with North Carolina. Minnesota had the highest percentage of casualties at Gettysburg, and Tennessee was second. This view was taken from the south facing north at approximately 4:30 PM on Thursday, May 8, 2008.
The monument was dedicated on July 3, 1963, the 100th anniversary of their attempt to assist Pickett’s Division. The cost was $20,000. It is 14′ 3″ in height. From north to south the monument measures 11’8″ at its base. The base measures 4’6″ from east to west. Southern Granite was the material used. This view was taken from the northwest facing southeast at approximately 4:30 PM on Thursday, May 8, 2008. | <urn:uuid:c9e7d95a-992e-4f27-8d49-2ea64f704792> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gettysburgdaily.com/florida-state-monument/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00097-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976864 | 592 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The label on your bottle of today's bitter medicine reads: "Health Care Rationing."
Before the 20th century, health care was cheap. Very little could be done for a sick person. Starting around the Second World War, a cornucopia of medical and surgical treatments became available, all expensive. Now we have $50 pills; coronary artery stents; artificial parts like ceramic hips; replacement parts such as liver transplants; and soon stem cell even gene therapy.
Partly because of medical advances but primarily due better public health and nutrition, more of us are living longer meaning there are more old people. Health care for old people is very expensive.
People often behave against their own best health interest. They smoke cigarettes. They do not exercise. They eat to obesity with all of its complications. They fail to get regular check-ups. When ill, they delay seeking medical care so when they do, the illness is much worse and more expensive.
These are only three of the nine reasons for out-of-control healthcare costs.
Demands for health care services are increasing for reasons noted above. Supply of health care services is contracting, especially its personnel. With rising demand, decreasing supply and under our present system, supply cannot balance demand. Something or someone must create balance. That is called rationing.
Rationing means control by someone other than you of distribution to you of goods and/or services. Rationing is a very negatively charged word because it has been associated with periods of extreme scarcity: the Great Depression and two World Wars. The word itself comes from Latin "ratio" meaning to think or to reason. Strictly speaking, rationing is a process to create a "reasonable" balance between supply and demand.
If anyone other than you controls the balance of your demands with the available supplies, whatever euphemism they call it, that is rationing. In the USA, payers - insurance companies and the Federal government - delay or deny payments and pay according to predetermined schedules. By controlling payment, they control [ration] the delivery of goods and services.
What about countries with so-called universal health care? In Canada and Australia, the government determines what services it will pay for and how much. If what you want or need is not on the list, you do not get that ration. In Great Britain, the National Health Service "rations" by queueing: yes, you can get a hip replacement or dialysis...but you go on a waiting list and might wait years before your name comes up. If you die before that time with neither hip replacement nor dialysis, there is no expense.
SOMEONE will ration your health care. Call that someone the system, the government, the insurance company, the evil empire, or...could we create a system where WE ration our own health care? The answer is yes and that is what we need.
Healthcare is and will be rationed. Who do you want to do it? | <urn:uuid:0dbcac46-ca72-4c57-a141-3a09b32422e4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deane-waldman/who-do-you-want-to-ration_b_192461.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964318 | 612 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
An urban legend or urban myth is similar to a modern folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them. The term is often used to mean something akin to an "apocryphal story". Urban legends are not necessarily untrue, but they are often distorted, exaggerated, or sensationalized over time. Despite the name, a typical urban legend does not necessarily originate in an urban setting.
The term is used to differentiate modern legend from traditional folklore in preindustrial times.
Urban legends are sometimes repeated in news stories and, in recent years, distributed by e-mail. People frequently allege that such tales happened to a "friend of a friend"—so often, in fact, that "friend of a friend", or "FOAF", has become a commonly used term when recounting this type of story.
The urban legend phenomenon is well-known in other languages. In the Netherlands, for example, a tale about monkey meat gave rise to the term "broodje aap verhalen" (i.e., monkey sandwich stories).
Some urban legends have passed through the years, with only minor changes to suit regional variations. One example as such is the story of a woman killed by spiders nesting in her elaborate hairdo. More recent legends tend to reflect modern circumstances, like the story of people ambushed, anesthetized, and waking up minus one kidney, which was surgically removed for transplantation.
The first study of the concept now described as an "urban legend" seems to be Edgar Morin's La Rume d'Orléans (in French) in 1969. Jan Harold Brunvand, professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah in the United States, used the term "urban legend" in print as early as 1979 in a book review appearing in the Journal of American Folklore 92:362. Even at that time, researchers had been writing about the phenomenon for a long time, but with varying terminology.
Brunvand used his collection of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings, to make two points: first, that legends, myths, and folklore do not occur exclusively to so-called primitive or traditional societies, and second, that one could learn much about urban and modern culture by studying such tales. Brunvand has since published a series of similar books, and is credited as the first to use the term vector (inspired by the concept of a biological vectors) to describe a person or entity passing on an urban legend.
Many urban legends are framed as complete stories, with plot and characters. Urban legends often resemble a proper joke, especially in the manner of transmission, but are much darker in tone and theme.
The compelling appeal of a typical urban legend are its elements of mystery, horror, fear or humor. Many urban legends are presented as warnings or cautionary tales, while others might be more aptly called "widely dispersed misinformation", such as the erroneous belief that a college student will automatically pass all courses in a semester if one's roommate commits suicide. While such "facts" may not have the narrative elements of traditional urban legend, they are nevertheless conveyed from person to person with the typical elements of horror, humor or caution.
Much like some folk tales of old, there are urban legends dealing with unexplained phenomena such as phantom apparitions.
Propagation and belief Edit
Many urban legends depict horrific crimes, contaminated foods or other situations which, if true, might affect a lot of people. Anyone believing such stories might feel compelled to warn loved ones.
A person might also pass on non cautionary information simply because it is funny or interesting. Many urban legends are essentially extended jokes, told as if they were true events. In some cases they may have originated as pure jokes, personalized by a subsequent teller to add point and force.
Many urban legends, like tall tales in general, contain a grain of truth. The urban legend that Coca-Cola developed the drink Fanta to sell in Nazi Germany without public backlash originated as the actual tale of German Max Keith. He invented the drink and ran Coca-Cola's operations in Nazi Germany during World War II.
Other urban legends are rooted in racism and/or antisemitism. For example, a common urban legend in the Middle East is the blood libel which says Jews drink the blood of Christian children. Variations of the myth depict the baking of babies' blood into holiday pastries.
Some urban legends have been devised by parents who wish to scare their children into obedience. Such stories often depict someone, usually a child, acting in a disagreeable manner, only to wind up hurt, dead, or in trouble.
People sometimes take urban legends to be true instead of recognizing them as tall tales or unsubstantiated rumors because of the way they are told. The teller of an urban legend may claim it happened to a friend, which serves to personalize and enhance the power of the narrative. Since people, unconsciously or otherwise, often exaggerate, conflate or edit stories when telling them, urban legends can evolve over time.
Other terminology Edit
Some people use the term "urban myth" instead of "urban legend". Brunvand feels that "urban legend" is less stigmatizing because "myth" is commonly used to describe things that are widely accepted as untrue. The more academic definitions of myth usually refer to a supernatural tale involving gods, spirits, the origin of the world, and so forth. However, the usage may simply reflect the idiom (eg, in Australia the term "urban myth" is used).
The term "urban myth" is preferred in some languages such as Mexican Spanish, where conventional coinage is "mito urbano" rather than "leyenda urbana." In French, urban legends are usually called "rumeurs d'Orléans" ("Orleans' rumours") after Edgar Morin's work. The expression "légende urbaine" is also very common.
Some scholars prefer the term "contemporary legend" to highlight those tales that originated relatively recently. This is true for all periods in history; for instance, an eighteenth-century pamphlet alleging that a woman was tricked into eating the ashes of her lover's heart would be a contemporary legend with respect to the eighteenth century.
The main scholarly association on the subject is called The International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, and its journal titled Contemporary Legend.
Documenting urban legends Edit
The advent of the Internet has facilitated the proliferation of urban legends. At the same time, however, it has allowed more efficient investigation of this social phenomenon.
The United States Department of Energy has a service called Hoaxbusters that deals with all sorts of computer-distributed hoaxes and legends.
Urban legends in popular cultureEdit
- A renewed interest in urban legends was sparked with the hit 1998 film Urban Legend, where a group of college students fascinated with urban legends begin falling victim to them. The characters discussed or fell victim to at least 16 of the most common urban legends. It was followed by the sequels Urban Legends: Final Cut and Urban Legends: Bloody Mary.
- Since 2003 the Discovery Channel TV show MythBusters has tried to prove or disprove urban legends by attempting to reproduce them.
- The Simpsons have used a long list of urban legends in episodes over the years, as documented by The Simpsons website SNPP .
- Several TV shows and films have used the urban legend about someone who wakes up in an ice-filled bathub missing a kidney. It was used in a 2006 episode of Las Vegas , a 2001 episode of Law & Order and in the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
- One well-known modern urban legend depicts a person, typically an outrageously old woman who seemingly doesn't know better, attempting to dry a wet poodle or cat in a microwave oven. After having killed the animal in the microwave, the woman files and wins a lawsuit because there was no warning sign attached to the device, ultimately causing companies to be obliged to put tags on their machines warning about that danger.
- Another legend depicts what is known as The Vanishing hitchhiker, while another poses that alligators dwell in New York City's sewers, where they grow to enormous size after being flushed down the toilet by dissatisfied pet owners.
- Few urban legends can be traced to their actual origins, exceptions to which include the The Submarine, the Steam tunnel incident and the Hungarian suicide song "Gloomy Sunday".
- Many urban legends revolve around consumer products and their perceived danger. One such urban legend depicts deaths caused by ingesting Pop Rocks candy mixed with soda, as they cause the stomach to explode. Possibly the most famous victims of this is John Gilchrist, better known as Little Mikey from the Life cereal commercials. Gilchrist is in fact still alive. In reality, there is nothing dangerous about the products either separate or together, as the fizzing in Pop Rocks and soda are both caused by carbon dioxide gas. In fact, the soda tends to diminish the 'pop' of the Pop Rocks.
Topics of urban legends Edit
- Li Qing Yuen - A long lived Chinese sage often cited by sellers of herbal medicine, for whom no documented record exists.
- Great Wall of China (Re: Visibility from the moon)
- Coriolis effect (Re: Toilets/bathtubs flowing in opposite direction below the equator)
- Chase Vault - Legendary alleged unexplained moving of coffins (See article section: Origins of Story)
- John Wesley Hardin - Legendary killer (See article section: Hardin and unconfirmed claims)
- Oak Island - Alleged buried treasure (See article sections: Early History; Documented History & History or Legend)
- Beale Ciphers - Alleged clues to lost treasure (See section: Did Thomas Jefferson Beale exist?).
- Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine - Legendary lost mine (See article sections: Stories About the Mine & The Historical Jacob Waltz)
- Lost Adams Diggings - Legendary lost mine.
- Bermuda Triangle - Legends of vanishing ships and planes.
- Melon heads - deformed individuals who prowl in the woods of Lake County, Ohio.
See also Edit
(In alphabetical order)
- REDIRECT Template:Multicol
- Bloody Mary (folklore)
- Books on haunted locations
- Conspiracy theory
- Conventional wisdom
- REDIRECT Template:Multicol-break
- REDIRECT Template:Multicol-break
- REDIRECT Template:Multicol-end
- Snopes - Urban Legends Reference Pages
- The AFU And Urban Legends Archive
- Christian Urban Legends
- About.com: Urban Legends and Folklore
- Myth Busters TV show
- The International Society for Contemporary Legend Research
- ↑ Mikkelson, Barbara, David P. Mikkelson Grade Expectations. Urban Legends Reference Pages. URL accessed on 2007-01-09.
- ↑ Mikkelson, Barbara The Reich Stuff?. Urban Legends Reference Pages. URL accessed on 2007-01-09.
- ↑ http://www.snopes.com/religion/blood.htm
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The Bruce Murray Space Image Library
Filed under Dione, pretty pictures, Tethys, Cassini, amateur image processing, Rhea, Saturn's small moons, Saturn's moons, many worlds
On January 11, 2011, Cassini captured five moons and the rings in one wide-angle shot. The large moon is Rhea (which Cassini had just flown past). There are two large icy moons in view. Below Rhea, just above the rings, is Dione. Below and to the right of Rhea is Tethys. There are also two "rocks" visible. Prometheus makes a tiny lump on the rings to the right of Dione, and Epimetheus floats between Tethys and Rhea.
NASA / JPL / SSI / Emily Lakdawalla
Original image data dated on or about January 11, 2011.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. For uses not allowed by that license, contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder: Emily Lakdawalla
Other Related Images
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How cool are cool roofs? PPPL serves as the laboratory to find the answer
Keith Rule and a team of interns felt the heat when they installed a weather station on top of the LSB roof last summer as part of the cool roofs project. From left to right, Keith Rule; Jessica Sponaugle, a summer intern from Monmouth University in West Long Branch; and Hannah Capponi, a summer intern from Council Rock High School North in Newtown, Pa.
(Photo by Elle Starkman, PPPL Office of Communications)
When Keith Rule and a team of interns walked onto the black and white roof of the main building of the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory one sweltering day last summer, they could feel the temperature difference between the two different colored areas in the soles of their feet.
The white roof was tolerable but the black roof was too hot to stand on. "You could feel it coming through your shoes," recalls Rule, a senior project engineer in the Environment, Safety, Health & Security Department, who is heading the project at PPPL.
Rule and his team installed equipment for a study that will give researchers a precise picture of what kinds of roofs work best in what kinds of weather and examine how so-called "cool roofs" can affect energy use and energy costs. "The question is: What gives you the most savings for the buck?" said Elie Bou-Zeid, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University who is the lead researcher on the project.
Researchers aim to find out whether cool roofs -- white roofs that reflect the sun -- are the best way to save energy and money in areas like New Jersey, where it's icy cold in winter and steaming hot in summer.
Early data shows dramatic temperature difference between black and white roofs
Early data from the project supports what Rule and his team's feet were telling them back in the summer: White roofs are much cooler than black roofs. When temperatures were in the 90s during the third week of August, for example, sensors measured the temperature on the black roofs at 130 degrees to 170 degrees Fahrenheit hot enough to fry an egg. Rule's team needed sunglasses to work on the highly reflective white roofs but they were much cooler ranging from 90 to 100 degrees.
However, the data also indicates that the thickness of the roof's insulation, called the R-value, could be the most crucial factor in determining whether the building will absorb the heat. A thicker roof seems to eliminate the differences between the black and white roofs and it works in all seasons, Bou-Zeid said. But more insulation costs more money than painting a roof white and the difference in cost will be another factor the study will consider.
Adam Cohen, PPPL's deputy director for operations, said the study has also demonstrated the value of PPPL's infrastructure for sustainability research: There are a large number of buildings at the site that can be used in a study and the Lab staff has shown itself to be an enthusiastic participant in sustainability research studies. "We showed that we could use this facility as a test bed to evaluate sustainability projects in a real working environment," Cohen said.
A constant stream of information
PPPL timed the project to take advantage of the fact that the Laboratory was replacing roofs and agreed to make PPPL a live laboratory for the cool roofs project. The team installed not just black and white colored roofs but also roofs of different thicknesses between March and early September.
The group installed four weather stations on five PPPL roofs that resemble wire tripods fitted with oddly-shaped contraptions. They measure all kinds of weather from solar radiation, better known as sunshine, during the sweltering days of the summer to the 85-mile-an-hour winds during Hurricane Sandy in October. The team also installed 25 sensors at five locations inside the roofs to measure heat absorption.
Every 15 minutes a data logger above the ceiling in each of the five buildings sends this information to Bou-Zeid, who is five miles away at Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science. Meanwhile, PPPL's automatic building systems feed Bou-Zeid data on how much electricity and fuel is being used for heating and air conditioning. He and Prathap Ramurthy, a postdoctoral research associate, plug the data into a computer model that will accurately predict the cheapest and most-energy efficient roof for every temperature and weather condition.
The cool roofs study at PPPL and Princeton stands out from previous studies, Bou-Zeid explained, because it is based on extremely detailed, minute-to-minute information on weather and heat absorption, and will therefore result in more accurate predictions.
Another significant difference, he said, is that this study is the only one to compare how the thickness of a roof affects heat absorption compared with cool roofs. "Our data will be much more exact," Bou-Zeid said.
Preventing pollution and saving energy
Many researchers believe that reflective white roofs earn the "cool roofs" title by reflecting the sun's rays to keep buildings' interiors cooler and reducing the need for air conditioning. Black roofs, on the other hand, absorb heat making buildings warmer year-round and potentially reducing heating costs in the winter.
The main effect cool roofs could have on the environment is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the amount of energy used to cool buildings. A 2010 study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. predicted that making roofs and pavements more reflective in all cities with populations of more than 1 million people in the northern hemisphere would offset 57 billion tons of CO2 emissions far more than the 36.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide released worldwide in one year in 2010.
Black roofs absorb solar radiation from the sun and when that heat escapes, the building emits heat or long-wave radiation some of which may be trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause the greenhouse effect, which is linked to global warming. By contrast, white roofs reflect solar radiation. The short waves of solar radiation or sunlight are not trapped by greenhouse gases and therefore do not contribute to global warming, Bou-Zeid said.
However, the main impact of white roofs on the environment would be to reduce energy consumption. Another 2010 Berkeley study on the potential benefits of cool roofs for commercial buildings in 236 U.S. cities estimated that commercial building owners who installed cool roofs in warm areas could reduce the amount of energy used for air conditioning by 10 to 30 percent. The study concluded that commercial building owners in cooler areas would pay more for heating in winter but would still realize a net decrease in energy costs.
The Cool Roofs project was funded by $193,250 from the DOE's Energy Efficient Buildings Hub. It is one of several EEB energy projects at PPPL that are concluding in January.
The Department of Energy's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. | <urn:uuid:f560497f-e709-43ae-9465-acabec7d579f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/features/doe/2012-12/dppl-hca121812.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954897 | 1,430 | 2.78125 | 3 |
|Name: _________________________||Period: ___________________|
This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. What does Rosa Cabarcas tell the narrator after he destroys the girl's room?
(a) Get out.
(b) Go with God.
(c) You will be sorry.
(d) This is the end.
2. What does the girl give the narrator for Christmas?
(d) Teddy bear.
3. What does Rosa Cabarcas think is the narrator's problem when it comes to the girl?
(a) Sexual problems.
(b) Empty nest syndrome.
(c) Senile dementia.
4. The narrator imagines singing love duets by _________ with the girl.
5. For how many days did the narrator try to call Rosa Cabarcas's house, but got no answer?
(a) 5 days.
(b) 6 days.
(c) 4 days.
(d) 10 days.
Short Answer Questions
1. The narrator thinks the newspaper offices have been remodeled to resemble a ____.
2. What does the narrator decide to call the girl?
3. Who does the narrator compare the girl to after their time apart?
4. What does the narrator's house smell like when he returns to find the leaks from the storm?
5. What does the girl do while the narrator destroys the room?
Short Essay Questions
1. What does Rosa Cabarcas tell the narrator the girl's life is like?
2. What does his love for the girl cause the narrator to see about himself?
3. What is the song that the narrator likes to sing to the girl about Delgadina?
4. What does the narrator imagine happened during the stormy night?
5. What does the narrator realize when he chases a girl, thinking she is his Delgadina?
6. How does the narrator's feeling for the girl change his column?
7. What does the narrator discuss during his breakfasts with Rosa Cabarcas?
8. What does the narrator do about his cat in the first few days of ownership?
9. What does the narrator do to try to rectify the false account of the banker's death?
10. How does his time with the girl change the narrator?
This section contains 765 words
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Chayote, also called mirliton or choko, is a gourd-like squash that is about the size and shape of a very large pear. The skin is pale green and smooth with slight ridges that run lengthwise. Many compare the color to a light green apple. The flesh is white and there is one soft seed in the middle. Chayote is grown in the US in several states including California, Florida, and Louisiana, and throughout South and East Asia, where they are harvested much larger than in the Americas, but it is native to Latin America. Historically, this squash was one of the primary foods of the Aztecs and Mayas.
Select squash that are small, firm and unblemished; just as you would select a pear. Choose squash that is heavy for its size. Tender skin, skin that reacts to pressure, often means poor quality. Chayote is commonly found in supermarkets during peak season (December to March), but may be found in larger supermarkets and specialty markets throughout the year. It is common to score the flesh of the squash with one's fingernails to test for ripeness, so be wary of such marks when selecting a squash.
Refrigerate whole chayote in a plastic bag for up to one month. Cut chayote may be refrigerated in a covered container or tightly wrapped for 3 to 5 days. It is best to use chopped chayote immediately, as it can gather flavors from other foods stored in the refrigerator.
Chayote has a bland-tasting flesh that may be used in several ways. It may be prepared in similar ways to other summer squash, such as zucchini, but may require peeling and a bit more seasoning. Chayote is most commonly used in side dishes, stews, and casseroles. It may also be sliced in half and baked or boiled whole and eaten plain. It is also used in mild curries in Indonesian cuisine. The soft seed is edible, but many choose to remove it. | <urn:uuid:b4dc96bd-79e3-4921-82a6-4acfca3144e0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Chayote | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00159-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968309 | 417 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Artist Sergio Albiac has used images sourced from the Hubble Space Telescope and photographs sent in by the public to create a series generative portraits for his Stardust exhibition.
In order to create the portraits, Sergio asked the public to send in a photograph of themselves, which he then transformed into generative collages using an automated process.
The idea behind the project, which Sergio describes as an "experiment", was to use technology to outsource the creation of art so more artworks could be created. "Modelling artistic decisions into software would provide a generative assistant that could even survive an artist in the creation of meaningful works of art," he explains on his website.
Sergio wanted to use the automated software to create as many novel combinations as possible, "taking the risks of non curated creation and experimenting with the use of generative strategies to create assisted works of art."
So far, there are more than 550 portraits in the Stardust Portrait online exhibition. You can see them all on Flickr here. | <urn:uuid:a3e9d71c-db3e-4db8-91a4-4fb3cb657b47> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/graphic-design/artist-creates-generative-portraits-using-images-from-hubble-space-telescope/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96854 | 208 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Investigating Earthquakes with ArcVoyager GIS
This chapter describes the technique of preparing "GIS-ready" data and shows how to map that data and conduct basic analyses using a geographic information system (GIS). Users download and format near real-time and historical earthquake data from the USGS. They use latitude and longitude fields to plot the data in a GIS. They analyze patterns by querying records and overlaying datasets. The focus of the chapter's case study is earthquake prediction. Users examine earthquake distributions, monitor current earthquake activity, and try to predict where the next big earthquake will occur on Earth.
This chapter is part of the Earth Exploration Toolbook. Each chapter provides teachers and/or students with direct practice for using scientific tools to analyze Earth science data. Students should begin on the Case Study page.
The EET web site collects no personally identifying information and so is compliant with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The site is constructed with tools that attempt to ensure the broadest possible accessibility in line with section 508 and w3c guidelines. | <urn:uuid:23eb0f40-8ee8-49bc-8d0c-deaba6e58a46> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://serc.carleton.edu/eet/earthquakes/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.86195 | 220 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Dandi : Salt March
Early in 1930, Gandhi, Nehru, and the Congress were to make a call for purna swaraj, or complete independence from British rule in India. Coming out of what might be termed a political retirement, Gandhi searched his mind for some action that might ignite the nation and serve as the expression of the will of the general community. The course of action that Gandhi decided to undertake is revealed by a remarkable letter that he addressed to Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, a letter most unusual in the annals of political discourse. "Dear Friend", he wrote to his political adversary on March 2, "I cannot intentionally hurt anything that lives, much less fellow human beings, even though they may do the greatest wrong to me and mine. Whilst, therefore, I hold the British rule to be a curse, I do not intend harm to a single Englishman or to any legitimate interest he may have in India." In a rather detailed analysis, Gandhi was to note the vast inequities in the salaries paid to Indians and to British officials: where the average Indian earned less than 2 annas per day, the British Prime Minister earned Rs. 180 per day, while the Viceroy received Rs. 700 per day; more tellingly, the Prime Minister of Britain received 90 times more than the average Britisher, but the Viceroy received "much over five thousand times India's average income." While not desirous of humiliating the Viceroy, Gandhi apologized for taking a "personal illustration to drive home a painful truth", and asked him "on bended knee" to "ponder over this phenomenon." The system of administration carried out in India was "demonstrably the most expensive in the world", and it had only further impoverished the nation.
If the British were not prepared to combat the various "evils" afflicting India under colonial rule, Gandhi was prepared to commence a fresh campaign of "civil disobedience". As he went on to inform Irwin, he intended to break the salt laws, a gesture that no doubt must have struck Irwin as bizarre. The British exercised a monopoly on the production and sale of salt: yet this was an essential ingredient, required by the poor as much as by the rich. "I regard this tax [on salt]", Gandhi wrote, "to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man's standpoint. As the independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land thebeginning will be made with this evil." Since Gandhi intended no harm to the Viceroy himself, or indeed to any Englishman, he chose to have his letter delivered in person by a "young English friend who believes in the Indian cause and is a full believer in non-violence". The Viceroy, not unexpectedly, promptly wrote back to express his regret that Gandhi was again "contemplating a course of action which is clearly bound to involve violation of the law and danger to the public peace."
"On bended knees I asked for bread and I have received stone instead", Gandhi remarked, and making good his promise, he set out on March 12 with seventy-eight of his followers and disciples from Sabarmati Ashram on the 241-mile march to Dandi on the sea. All along the way, he addressed large crowds, and with each passing day an increasing number of people joined Gandhi on the march. It is said that the roads were watered, and fresh flowers and green leaves strewn on the path; and as the satyagrahis walked, they did so to the tune of one of Gandhi's favorite bhajans, Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram, sung by the great Hindustani vocalist, Pandit Paluskar. On April 5, Gandhi arrived at Dandi: short prayers were offered, Gandhi addressed the crowd, and at 8:30 AM he picked up a small lump of natural salt. Gandhi had now broken the law; Sarojini Naidu, his close friend and associate, shouted: "Hail, Deliverer!" No sooner had Gandhi violated the law than everywhere others followed suit: within one week the jails were full, and subsequently Gandhi himself was to be taken into jail.
It has been suggested by some historians that nothing substantial was achieved by Gandhi through this campaign of civil disobedience. Gandhi and Irwin signed a truce, and the British Government agreed to call a conference in London to negotiate India's demands for independence. Gandhi was sent by the Congress as its sole representative, but the negotiations proved to be inconclusive, particularly since various other Indian communities had been encouraged by the British to send a representative and make the claim that they were not prepared to live in an India under the domination of the Congress. Yet never before had the British consented to negotiate directly with the Congress, and Gandhi met Irwin as his equal. In this respect, the man who most loathed Gandhi, Winston Churchill, understood the extent of Gandhi's achievement when he declared it "alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor." Likewise, even Nehru was to come to a better appreciation of Gandhi following his march to the sea, since many Indians now appeared to understand that the nation had unshackled itself and achieved a symbolic emancipation. "Staff in hand he goes along the dusty roads of Gujarat", Nehru had written of Gandhi, "clear-eyed and firm of step, with his faithful band trudging along behind him. Many a journey he has undertaken in the past, many a weary road traversed. But longer than any that have gone before is this last journey of his, and many are the obstacles in his way. But the fire of a great resolve is in him and surpassing love of his miserable countrymen. And love of truth that scorches and love of freedom that inspires. And none that passed him can escape the spell, and men of common clay feel the spark of live. It is a long journey, for the goal is the independence of India and the ending of the exploitation of her millions."
T he picture of Gandhi, firm of step and walking staff in hand, was to be among the most enduring of the images of him, and it is through this representation that the Bengali artist Nandlal Bose sought to immortalize Gandhi. Yet in innumerable other respects, many of which have received little attention (and of which I shall mention only four), the march to the sea remains an extraordinary event. First, no one knew the meaning and potential of symbols as much as did Gandhi, but his ability to read and manipulate signs has not been the subject of any systematic study. Second, unlike most 'revolutionaries', Gandhi thought it no part of his quest for truth to retain secrecy: accordingly, the Government was informed of his precise plans and invited to arrest him. Again, though women were full and active members of Gandhi's community, and many were to be closely associated with him over a lengthy period of time, no women were present among the 78 people chosen to accompany him on the march. Gandhi took the view that the presence of women might deter the British from attacking the satyagrahis, and that no such excuse should be available to the British if they should wish to retaliate. Behind this lay Gandhi's distinction between non-violence of the strong and non-violence of the weak; curiously, Gandhi's thinking was also informed by a certain sense of chivalry, such that any triumph of non-violence was diminished if the playing field was not level. Fourth, the walk brought the body into the body politic, and so belonged with Gandhi's other practices of the body.
Dalton, Dennis. Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, Ch. 4.
Tendulkar, D. G. The Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (new rev. ed., Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Publications Division, 1961), pp. 14-38. | <urn:uuid:d22f4f2c-b9ca-4e44-ab32-844d2ef8444b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Gandhi/Dandi.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979403 | 1,700 | 3.34375 | 3 |
There has been a non-international armed conflict in Sri Lanka for more than 25 years. In May 2009, the government claimed final victory against the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers), a non-state armed group formed in 1977. They had been confined to a small coastal area in the north-east of the country, and their positions were reported to have been completely overrun. The President of Sri Lanka said the country had been "liberated" from the Tamil Tigers.
From around 1980, the LTTE began attacks on politicians, the police, and the army in the north. This brought a Sinhalese backlash in the south: in July 1983 there were riots against Tamils in Colombo and the south-west of the country, and Tamils fled to the north and Tamil Nadu in India. The army deployed in the north, the conflict escalated, and the Tamil Tigers gained effective control of Jaffna and the northern peninsula.
Most of the fighting took place in the north, but the conflict also penetrated the heart of Sri Lankan society with Tamil Tiger rebels carrying out devastating suicide bombings in Colombo in the 1990s. The violence killed more than 60,000 people, damaged the economy and harmed tourism in one of South Asia's most potentially prosperous societies.
A cease-fire and a political agreement reached between the government and rebels in late 2002 raised hopes for a lasting settlement, but Norwegian-brokered peace talks stalled and monitors reported open violations of the truce by the government and Tamil Tiger rebels. In 2006, the intensity of fighting and attacks by both the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) increased dramatically, killing an estimated 3,200 people. Hope for a negotiated settlement to the conflict diminished, as the LTTE demanded that cease-fire observers from EU member states leave the country (after the EU banned the LTTE as a terrorist group), peace talks collapsed, and the leader of the LTTE called the peace process defunct.
Fighting continued in 2007, and in mid-January 2008 the cease-fire formally expired. The Sri Lankan Government dismissed an earlier call by Tamil Tiger rebels for both sides to observe the 2002 cease-fire. The rebels said they were "shocked and disappointed" that the Government was ending the cease-fire, but the Government accused the rebels of using the cease-fire as a cover to "unleash terror activities."
By 2009, the Sri Lankan army was closing in on remaining Tamil Tiger positions, confining them to an ever decreasing area in Mullaitivu district in north-eastern Sri Lanka. The government said the Tigers no longer controlled any area beyond this. Estimates of the number of civilians trapped in the area vary from 50,000 to 200,000. It was alleged that the Tamil Tigers were preventing civilians from leaving the conflict zone. The Tamil Tigers said the people were choosing to stay.
International Crisis Group, "Crisis in Sri Lanka", Updated 30 April 2009.
International Crisis Group, "Sri Lanka's Return to War: Limiting the Damage," February 2008.
BBC, "Q & A: The Sri Lanka conflict", May 2009. | <urn:uuid:98581202-fa68-4ac6-9f6f-dd9704ab9738> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.geneva-academy.ch/RULAC/current_conflict.php?id_state=206 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969348 | 649 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Angela Carella: Yam I am -- not
Updated 10:01 pm, Tuesday, November 20, 2012
It may be that you've never eaten a yam.
You may think that you must have eaten one, at least, at Thanksgiving, since yams are a staple of the traditional meal.
But chances are good the long, orange tuber with pointy ends sitting on your plate beside the slices of turkey and spoonfuls of cranberry sauce, the baked vegetable that you split open and consumed, buttered, was a sweet potato.
Not a yam.
Confused? Blame the federal government.
In the United States, there are two main varieties of sweet potato. One has golden skin with white, crumbly flesh, and the other has a copper-colored skin with orange, moist flesh.
In Colonial times the African people forced into slavery and brought to America thought they recognized the orange variety. It looked like a root vegetable, the nyami, from their homeland.
In Africa, the nyami was a staple. With a firm flesh that keeps for a long time, it got people through the wet season, when food was scarce. Bland and dry, nyami were peeled, boiled and mashed, or they were dried and ground into a powder used to make porridge.
Over time the colonists kept the name "sweet potato" for the golden-skinned variety and adopted the name "nyami" for the copper-skinned variety, Americanizing the African word to "yam."
A couple of centuries later, the U.S. Department of Agriculture put its stamp of approval on the misnamed orange variety. The USDA set a requirement that both varieties be labeled "sweet potato," but that the orange variety also be labeled "yam."
The yam and the sweet potato are tubers, or underground stems, of flowering plants, but they aren't related botanically. Yams are in the lily family, and sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family, according to the Library of Congress website.
Yams are widely used in parts of Africa and Asia, in Central America and South America, and in the West Indies and many Pacific Islands. But it's unlikely you'll find a true yam in the typical American supermarket.
Don't despair, though, during Thanksgiving dinner. In 1621 the English Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians didn't eat yams, either. If you want to mimic that meal, break out the wildfowl, venison and corn, with turkey as a side dish, and maybe some shellfish and eel. Forget potatoes of any kind -- they hadn't yet made their way from South America and the Caribbean.
And don't bother with dessert -- the Pilgrims had no ovens or sugar or butter or wheat flour to bake pies. It's likely there were pumpkins, but they weren't cooked in pies.
The reason we know anything about what was served is that Edward Winslow, a Pilgrim leader, wrote home to England about the 1621 harvest celebration, and the governor of the colony, William Bradford, described it in a kind of diary.
The Thanksgiving tradition as we know it didn't start until 200 years later. According to the website for the Smithsonian Museum, there was a nostalgia for the colonial age in the mid-1800s, a time of industrial progress. Winslow's letter and Bradford's memoir were rediscovered and published, and a Boston clergyman declared the 1621 harvest celebration the first Thanksgiving.
At the time Godey's Lady's Book was a popular women's magazine and the editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, was the Martha Stewart of her day. Hale started a campaign to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday and pitched the idea to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War as a way to unite the country, according to the Smithsonian website. In 1863, Lincoln declared the holiday.
As part of her campaign, Hale printed recipes in her magazine, published cookbooks and put together Thanksgiving menus for American homemakers that included roast turkey with sage dressing, creamed onions, mashed turnips and mashed potatoes, according to the Smithsonian website, which quotes a culinarian at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Mass.
Since then, the basic Thanksgiving menu hasn't changed much, though at some point in the last 150 years the so-called yam took its place on it.
Perhaps that's as it should be. The yam seems as steeped in American history as the turkey.
email@example.com or 203-964-2296 | <urn:uuid:e36e8c46-776d-449a-b554-c1c41196d69d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Angela-Carella-Yam-I-am-not-4054858.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967497 | 957 | 2.9375 | 3 |
320. Patriotism Among Catholics. We have seen that the discovery and exploration of America and the subsequent Christianizing and civilizing of the Indians were preeminently Catholic enterprises; also that the colonial times were dark and intolerant for Catholics. The opposition of the colonies to the Quebec Act proved plainly that the old anti-Catholic prejudices were still very much alive. During the war, however, the colonial Catholics, forgetting the many wrongs of the past, unanimously supported the patriot cause. Nor did they distinguish themselves only in the army and navy, but also in council halls and legislatures. In the day of trial the Catholic faith proved the grandeur of its principles. It produced no traitors, no oppressors of their country.
After the American alliance with Catholic France, the law excluding Catholics from civil rights was repealed. With this event dawned a new era for Catholicity in America. Among prominent Catholic leaders in the army may be mentioned : Stephen Moylan, the French Counts, Lafayette and Rochambeau, the noble Poles, Kosciusko and Pulaski, the German Barons, Steuben and De Kalb, and the Indian chief, Orono. Stephen Moylan occupied one after another, offices of trust in the American army and rounded out the full measure of his service with General Greene in the southern campaign at the close of the war. William Paca, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, held numerous political offices in his own state, and was a member of the State convention which ratified the federal Constitution. Thomas Fitzsimmon was a member of the First Continental Congress, took part in the Trenton campaign, and was a member of the convention that framed the Constitution of the United States. Daniel Carroll of Maryland was the only other Catholic member. Eminent Catholics in the navy were Captain John Barry and Jeremiah O’Brien.
Catholics who figured prominently in Congress were the famous Charles and Daniel Carroll, William Paca, and Thomas Fitzsimmon. There was an entire Catholic regiment, sons of Ireland, in the Pennsylvania line. Washington’s personal guard, the flower and choice of the army, was largely composed of Catholics. At the close of the war a solemn ”Te Deum” was chanted (November 4, 1781) in one of the Catholic churches in Philadelphia. Members of the United States Congress, Washington, Lafayette, and many of the distinguished generals and citizens attended. The Catholics of the United States, in common with their fellow-citizens, hailed with joy the election of George Washington as first President under the new Constitution. Before the inauguration, Bishop Carroll, on behalf of the Catholic clergy, united with the representatives of the Catholic laity (Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Daniel Carroll of Maryland, Dominic Lynch of New York, and Thomas Fitzsimmon of Pennsylvania) in an address of congratulation to the new President. The memorable and cordial reply of “Washington “To the Roman Catholics of the United States” was as follows: “I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality; and I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed. . . . May the members of your Society in America, animated alone by the pure spirit of Christianity, and still conducting themselves as the faithful subjects of our free government, enjoy every temporal and spiritual felicity.”
With the birth of the new nation, the ultimate outcome of a fourteen-year struggle for independence and nationality, we may fittingly close this eventful epoch with the following extract from the Pastoral Letter of the Fathers of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (December 7, 1884) : “We consider the establishment of our Country’s independence, the shaping of its Liberties and Laws, as a work of special Providence; its framers ‘building better than they knew,’ the Almighty’s Hand guiding them.”
Franciscan Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration, History of the United States for Catholic Schools (New York: Foresman and Company, 1914), 239-242. | <urn:uuid:80a56a5a-4102-4108-be36-0b29fc0fe338> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mcnamarasblog/2013/07/catholics-and-the-american-revolution-an-excerpt-from-a-catholic-school-textbook-1914.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966767 | 877 | 3.78125 | 4 |
Micronutrient deficiencies are particularly severe in Bangladesh. Understanding howhousehold income, food prices, parental education and nutritional knowledge, and culturally-based customs and food preferences interact to determine food consumption patterns (particularly for nonstaple foods), and so micronutrient intake, can provide crucial information for designing policies and intervention programs to improve human nutrition. Within the typical dietary patterns of the Bangladeshi survey population, the key food group with respect to micronutrient consumption is vegetables, providing nearly 95 percent of vitamin A intake, 75 percent of vitamin C intake, and 25 percent of iron intake. Vegetables are the least expensive sources of all of these nutrients. Vegetables are sufficiently inexpensive sources of vitamin A and vitamin C that they could provide the RDA within normal dietary patterns and the budgets of low-income groups. There is no corresponding inexpensive source of iron. Programs to educate consumers about the importance of meeting recommended daily allowances of vitamin A and vitamin C and about commonly eaten sources of these nutrients has the potential for improving intake. Because a high proportion of vitamin A and vitamin C intake apparently comes from own-production, extension programs to promote growing specific vitamin A and vitamin C rich foods not only would provide households with a ready supply of these nutrients, but increased production could bring the local price down. | <urn:uuid:47e30b34-59de-4f7f-9ea0-c9977ee032c7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ifpri.org/publication/determinants-demand-micronutrients | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916454 | 263 | 3.84375 | 4 |
How the human face is formed: Video shows how a baby's unique features develop in the womb
It's what every expectant parent wants to know - who their baby will look like.
And this fascinating video goes some way to showing how.
Produced for the BBC series Inside the Human Body that was aired last year, the animation is based on scans of a developing embryo and captures the formation of the face in the womb.
The amazing BBC video shows the development of the human face whilst in the womb
The video reveals how sections of the face grow and fit together like a puzzle just three months after conception.
BBC’s Michael Mosley said: 'The three main sections of the puzzle meet in the middle of your top lip, creating the groove that is your philtrum.'
The 30-second clip strings together 3-D models of the developing face based on scans taken in the first trimester.
'It was a nightmare for structures like the nose and palate, which didn’t exist for most of the animation,' graphics researcher David Barker told New Scientist.
Taking shape: The face develops eyes and a mouth and the beginnings of a nose
Nearly there: The face is now beginning to be recognisable
The BBC's Michael Mosley explains how the 30-second clip strings together 3-D models of the developing face
'Their formation is a complicated ballet of growth and fusion of moving plates of tissue.'
Plates of tissue that fuse at the philtrum, which can be long or short and deep or shallow, depending on a person’s genetic makeup.
The failure of those plates to fuse can cause a cleft lip or palate. And a smooth philtrum can signal disorders like fetal alcohol syndrome.
'This whole amazing process – the bits coming together to produce a recognisable human face – happens in the womb between two and three months,' said Mr Mosley. 'If it doesn’t happen then, it never will.'
The comments below have not been moderated.
We are no longer accepting comments on this article. | <urn:uuid:417380ad-6374-49d7-a1f6-e81fc58a8d26> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2169390/How-human-face-formed-Video-shows-babys-unique-features-develop-womb.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90468 | 429 | 3.375 | 3 |
Posted by Ward on August 16, 2004
In Reply to: Re: Difference between idioms, proverbs and metaphors posted by ESC on August 16, 2004
: : : I am an Indian, and English is my second language. Inspite of tossing a few odd ones every now and then in my writing as well as in speech, I must admit I sometimes do wonder about the difference. This is like one of those obvious amenities, taken for granted in any sphere of knowledge to be implicitly understood, those that we use overly, but do not so fully claim knowing over their technicalities. So I ask, what's the difference between idioms, proverbs and metaphors?
: : : NOTE: Remove the NO_SPAM from the email address specified above.
: : proverb - is a saying that makes a truth or piece of wisdom easier to remember e.g. a stitch in time saves nine (minor preventative action is less trouble than disaster-recovery) or 'many a true word spoken in jest' (take care as to what you say, it can reveal more than you may wish)
: : idiom - is a regularly used form of words, particular in some way - either to an individual or a group. it can form a style of communication.
: : metaphor - this is where some aspect of the real world is used to describe something similar. it often only relates to some facet(s) on the comparison. it involves describing the subject as the comparison, rather than comparing them using 'as' or 'like'. some metaphors have become so familiar that they have passed into speech as the description of something used without people even realising that they are using a metaphor - I don't know if there is a special word for these 'hidden' metaphors - somebody more educated than I will doubtless advise.
: : L
: Here's an entry I posted a while back about proverbs and such:
: : : The main part of this entry is from "When is a Pig a Hog?: A Guide to Confoundingly Related English Words" by Bernice Randall (Galahad Books, New York, 1991). The additional information in parenthesis and the two items at the end are from "What's the Difference? A Compendium of Commonly Confused and Misused Words" by Jeff Rovin (Ballantine Books, New York, 1994).
: : : "Saying/proverb -- A SAYING is the simple, direct term for any pithy expression of wisdom or truth. For instance, one might comment on 'the sayings of Chairman Mao' or observe that a cynical friend 'knows the price of everything and, as the saying goes, the value of nothing.' Several other words are often used in place of saying, yet shades of meaning set them somewhat apart.
: : : An ADAGE is a SAYING that has been popularly accepted over a long period of time. For example: 'Where there's smoke, there's fire.'
: : : An APHORISM is a terse SAYING that embodies a general, more or less profound truth or principle. For example: 'If you came unbidden you depart unthanked.' (".short, pithy, instructive saying." Like "there's more than one way to skin a cat.")
: : : An EPIGRAM is a terse, witty, pointed statement that often has a clever twist of thought. For example: 'The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.' This is not the same as an epigraph, which is either an inscription on a monument or building or a brief quotation placed at the beginning of a book or chapter to suggest its theme.
: : : A MAXIM is a general principle drawn from practical experience and serving as a rule of conduct. For example: 'Practice what you preach.' (".self-righteous or moralistic APHORISM; for example: 'Man is the measure of all things.'")
: : : A MOTTO is a MAXIM accepted as a guiding principle or as an ideal of behavior. For example: 'Honesty is the best policy.' (".an expression that embodies the philosophy of a person or group, such as, 'People are our most important business.")
: : : A PROVERB is a piece of practical wisdom expressed in homely, concrete terms. For example: 'A closed mouth catches no flies.' (PROVERB ".synonymous with an
: : : ADAGE - is a short, popular saying that expresses a truth or insight; for example, 'a word to the wise is sufficient.")
: : : A SAW is an old homely SAYING that is well worn by repetition. For example: 'A stitch in time saves nine.'" (.an extremely quaint PROVERB, such as, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think.'")"
: : : An IDIOM is an expression whose meaning can't be derived simply by hearing it, such as 'Kick the bucket.'"
: : : Mr. Rovin's book lists two additional terms:
: : : "An APOTHEGM is an edgy, more cynical APHORISM; such as, 'Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.'
My, we do make this language into a monster. The number of different definitions above is remarkable. In philosophy, nuance is often celebrated, but in everyday English, I wonder how many real differences exist in the way people really speak about these things. Wittgenstein would have a party with this one! | <urn:uuid:19fd7884-96df-4a27-a38a-f8744a5e93f0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/33/messages/1056.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937949 | 1,176 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Cow pregnant with alien cloned embryo
A cow is about to become the surrogate mother of the first cloned animal to gestate in the womb of another species.
Surrogate ungulate Bessie, who lives on a farm in Iowa, will give birth next month to a guar, if all goes well. The gaur is an endangered ox-like animal which is now close to extinction in its native India and Burma.
The Washington Post reports that the muscular, humpbacked animal, of which about 90 remain, was cloned from a single cell taken from a dead animal.
Scientists from Massechussetts based Advanced Cell Technology, who are doing the research, took 692 skin cells from the donor animal. These were fused with cows' eggs from which the genes had been removed. Cultured in vitro, 81 embryos survived, and 32 were transferred to their surrogate cow mothers. Of these, eight cows became pregnant, but five miscarried and now only one cow remains pregnant and due to give birth next month.
Advanced Cell Technology now has its sights set on cloning other endangered animals, including giant pandas and a possibly extinct Spanish Mountain goat.
The experiment, to be published this week in the journal Cloning, has drawn both criticism and praise from wildlife ecologists and endangered species experts, the Washington Post reports.
The fear is that such high-tech efforts at conservation could interfere with efforts to preserve endangered species' habitat, or reduce genetic diversity. There are also concerns about bringing animals back when there is no longer any native habitat for them, dooming them to a life in a zoo.
However, Advanced Cell Technology argues clonable cells should be frozen from all species to insure against further loss of habitat in the future. San Diego Zoo is already doing this, building up a frozen zoo of embryos to guard against future losses of wildlife.
Dr Ian Gunn who is project Director with the Animal Gene Storage and Resource Centre of Australia within Monash University said the project was viable, because the cow and the guar were closely related, and there were enough guar left to make a genetically viable population. | <urn:uuid:b0549663-431d-4d41-a5ba-8dc44f993740> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2000/10/10/197245.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971957 | 435 | 2.8125 | 3 |
In the September 2009 edition of Nature, Rockstöm and colleagues proposeda range of essential Earth-system processes and their biophysical thresholds, or ‘planetary boundaries’, that, if exceeded, could lead to catastrophic environmental changes. Earlier this year, the planetary boundaries concept was accepted into the ‘Zero Draft’ of the Rio+20 conference as an essential element in negotiations toward setting environmentally related goals. However, following heavy scientific criticism, the concept was excluded from the Summit’s final statement in June.
The dismissal of planetary boundaries from the final Rio+20 text provides some implications for other environmental metric projects, including our work with the Environmental Performance Index (EPI). Here we address the arguments posed against planetary boundaries, which were recently reviewed by the staff at the Breakthrough Institute. Over the last decade we have incorporated many of these views into the EPI projects, and now we would like to offer some insight into our lessons learned. These experiences will be among the many we present in the upcoming release of our new “how-to” manual on developing environmental performance indices.
A huge challenge for many environmental metric projects is defining the goals and targets of the indicators they present. One of the major arguments from scientists is that planetary boundaries, or biophysical thresholds, are set subjectively, and humans, not ecological systems, determine the question, “How much is too much?” Research has shown that there are limits to an ecosystem’s capacity to absorb human impacts, and this understanding must be applied when defining a threshold or target. For example, we can only divert so much river water for irrigation before a river runs dry, and a plant can only take up so much nitrogen before the excess is washed away during a rainstorm.
Throughout our experience with the EPI, we have carefully considered setting limits and boundaries – constraints that may be viewed as subjective. We generally first looked toward global treaties or universally accepted goals for our indicator targets. We also obtained feedback from experts through discussions of existing data and policy needs, and we chose targets based on that guidance. While the targets of our index are not thresholds per se, they do allow countries to compare their performance toward the overall EPI goal of global improvement while providing data-driven support for policymaking.
Another major challenge for environmental metric projects is comparability between the types of issues they present. Scientists argue against the attempts of the planetary boundaries concept to compare local and global issues collectively. Is it adequate to compare a global issue, such as climate change, with more local issues, such as biodiversity, water, land and fertilizer? For a planet-wide standard, this may be a hard argument to win because many of the processes presented in these boundaries are not static around the world, and vulnerability to changes in these processes may vary geographically. But these are problems that should be examined everywhere, and it is important to consider what geographical scope is necessary for adequate comparability and applicability of a given project.
Several concepts of environmental change attempt to integrate costs and benefits into a framework, which ultimately is a decision that must be made with regards to a project’s objectives and metrics (e.g., examining human influence on environmental change or measuring progress toward a policy-defined environmental objective). Many times, changes in the environment with respect to human influence are often seen as negative. The authors at the Breakthrough Institute frame this as a problem with planetary boundaries – that they only measure environmental change as negative, and it is impossible for progression toward these boundaries to be positive. They argue that humans have benefited from many of these changes, and any framework attempting to measure environmental change must acknowledge these trade-offs.
The planetary boundaries framework also addresses ethics within science – arbitrarily setting numbers that “reflect preferred outcomes.” The planetary boundaries concept failed to make an explicit connection between particular outcomes and values. Without clarification of meanings and trade-offs between numbers, these thresholds suggest “what is” or “what ought to be,” therefore hindering the transparency of the project’s ethical commitments.
The EPI team takes great care in selecting appropriate targets that are transparent, supported by data, and globally comparable. The EPI is not trying to answer the question of ”how much is too much” because this is only a question that can be answered with human subjectivity (e.g., zero human impact is not possible without ceasing all economic activity, and any goal above zero impact would be determined by individual notions of how much harm is acceptable). Rather, we are hoping to provide a useful and transparent measurement of performance toward a specified policy goal using unbiased judgment and expert reasoning.
The arguments against the planetary boundaries framework have offered our team a chance to reflect on the lessons we’ve learned in our environmental performance measurement work over the years. Data-driven research is necessary for sound policymaking, and the failure to incorporate planetary boundaries into the final Rio+20 text has important implications for environmental measurement projects, especially with regards to measuring change, establishing limits or targets, comparability, trade-offs, and transparency.
Laura Johnson is a master's student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, where she is focusing on biogeochemistry and pollution analysis of aquatic systems. She is interested in the science and policy of environmental issues and their impacts on human health and welfare. | <urn:uuid:80ba428b-1d55-4f69-b2a0-8aab5378b94a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://environment.yale.edu/envirocenter/rio20-rejects-notion-of-planetary-boundaries-00-are-there-consequences/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951006 | 1,095 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Most of us know that microwave ovens don't get along with aluminum foil, CDs, and certain foods. But it can be great fun - don't try this at home - to toss those things in and watch the sparks and explosions that result.
An experiment gone wrong can ruin your microwave, or at least cover it in the sticky remains of whatever you've just exploded, so we don't recommend it. Luckily, the video above lets you watch the insanity from from the comfort of your desk.
The best part?
It's in super slow-motion. Some of the objects outright explode, like the egg; others, like the watermelon, have very specific reactions to the microwave's power. Interestingly, though, it doesn't happen instantly: you can see that the egg white is already partially cooked when it blows up, so the microwave might have done its job if the egg were sturdier or had holes for ventilation.
Microwaves work by making polar molecules - ones that have positive and negative sides - spin around and hit one another, creating heat. Water is one of these polar molecules, and if the resulting steam can't get out (of, say, an egg) then something's got to give.
If this isn't enough, we understand. Some experimenters get even more extreme with microwave experiments. One word: plasma.
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Get top stories and blog posts emailed to me each day. Newsletters may offer personalized content or advertisements.Learn more | <urn:uuid:61fde56f-f0bd-4afa-8519-67e749158cd9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/microwave-oven-explodes-f_n_1236574.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952675 | 309 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Created by seismic activity along the Afro-Syrian Rift, the Gulf of Aqaba is a deep narrow body of water, bordered by Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and is one of the hinges connecting the Asian and African continents. The gulf extends 180 km from Eilat and Aqaba and joins the Red Sea at the Straits of Tiran, with its widest point spanning 28 km. Israel's gulf shore extends only a few kilometers, from the city of Eilat to the border with Egypt at Taba. Jordan's shore reaches some 20 km in length, extending to the Saudi border opposite Marsa al Muqabila in northern Sinai. Egypt enjoys the longest gulf border, which stretches some 170 km between Taba and the Straits of Tiran.
The Gulf of Aqaba is a natural transshipment area. Proposals to enhance the areas capacity as a logistic gateway between Asia, Europe and Africa on an international scale and between the Maghreb countries and Persian Gulf on a regional scale, have been presented by the Jordanian, Israeli and Egyptian governments. These proposals include upgrading the Port of Aqaba and road access to it, establishing an inland port logistic center connecting transport, manufacturing and storage facilities in the Aqaba-Eilat region, creating international passenger and commercial airports at Aqaba/Ein Evrona and Ras el Naqeb, establishing border and trans-border production zones at Eilat/Aqaba and Ras el Naqeb, and extending rail service between Red and Mediterranean sea ports.Eilat
Israel's southern-most city, Eilat is situated at the junction of the JRV with the Gulf of Aqaba, and borders on Jordan and Egypt (Taba). The rich underwater life in the gulf, and its strategic location at the intersection of two deserts - Sinai and Arava - make Eilat a notable seaside resort with a year-round tourist season. Many of the city's 40,000 residents are employed in the various tourism and tourism-related industries, while the construction industry works overtime to keep pace with the ever-increasing number of visitors. It is anticipated that the city's 6,600 hotel rooms in 1995 will increase by 150% in the coming years, as will the number of non-hotel accommodation facilities. Eilat is the most highly developed urban center which offers a number of tourism attractions and amenities, such as restaurants, night clubs, water and other sports facilities and site-seeing programs. A comprehensive development plan for the Eilat and Eilot strip region was recently elaborated. The plan includes proposals for unilateral projects as well as bilateral projects with the Kingdom of Jordan Some of the projects described below are included in this plan.
Located across the Gulf of Aqaba from Eilat, Aqaba is Jordan's only outlet to the sea and a transport hub to the Gulf countries. The Aqaba sea and airports comprise focal points for the development a major regional and international logistic center. In addition, Aqaba is being primed as one of Jordans primary industrial centers, with several key heavy industries planned for the south and the desert northeast of the city and light manufacturing, assembly and processesing plants for the northwest section, near the airport.
While Aqaba presently offers more than 1,100 hotel rooms, plans are underway to increase the city's tourist facilities. Jordan has major development plans for tourism in Aqaba, particularly in the area south of the city center. Jordan also plans to enhance the tourism capacity and products in Petra and Wadi Rum.Taba
Taba is the border crossing between Israel and Egypt on the Gulf of Aqaba. The area boasts a hotel and casino, and an airport located at the nearby Ras-el-Naqab. With the development of tourist services, a passenger and cargo terminal and accompanying commercial facilities, the Ras el Naqeb area could be developed as a free trade and processing zone. Plans exist for vast development of tourist facilities in the Taba region within three development centers between the border and Ras Bourka. Development will also include new town centers at the border and Moqbela/Al Homayra, a world-class casino, golf courses and marinas.
Israel-Jordan Agreement on Eilat-Aqaba Special Area
An Agreement on Special Arrangements for Aqaba and Eilat between Israel and Jordan was signed in 1996. This Agreement stipulates that Israel and Jordan will cooperate on issues relating to both towns including: environmental management, pest control; flood management; town zoning and land use policies; energy and natural resources; emergency response services; and the promotion of binational and multinational events, such as music festivals, sporting evens, etc. The Agreement also calls for the establishment of a Special Tourism Zone in the region, in which cross border tourism will be encouraged by simplifying crossing procedures, a binational Special Economic Zone, and a binational Red Sea Marine Peace Park.
A special Aqaba-Eilat Working Committee has been formed to coordinate plans and activities, including border crossing procedures, sanitation and joint environmental issues, operation of the Aqaba Peace Airport, and joint R&D in desert mariculture. Arrangements are being finalized to issue a limited number (150 for each side) of multi-entry visas to facilitate passage of tourism industry and other business professionals between the two cities. Means for allowing easy passage of Jordanian workers to Eilat are also being discussed.
Taba-Eilat-Aqaba Macro Area (TEAM) Working Group
A program involving Israel, Jordan and Egypt for the coordinated development of the Gulf of Aqaba sub-region has been supported by the European Union. The Taba-Eilat-Aqaba Macro Area has been defined as follows:
According to the TEAM Area concept, Egypt, Israel and Jordan will continue to pursue their development objectives within their national territories. Coordinated development of the region, will complement national planning. Collaborative planning of the Gulf of Aqaba focuses on strengthening infrastructure links, coordinating environmental protection, realizing economies of scale and promoting private sector investment.
A steering committee, comprising core party representatives and chaired by the European Commission, has been set up to coordinate planning activities.
Sources: Israeli Foreign Ministry | <urn:uuid:1e813994-4ca3-4f13-b90b-49607039f0b4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/geo/aqaba.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938885 | 1,299 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Sugata Mitra, winner of the 2013 TED prize, says, “Schools as we know them are obsolete.” His conclusion is based on his research with very poor children in India who, when given unfettered access to a computer, learned English, math, and science without being in school. Mitra calls this SOLE – a self-organizing learning environment. You might conclude that although SOLE is the future for poor kids in India, it is not the future for kids in urban centers in the West. I think that would be a naïve assumption. Development of the hundreds of millions of children who live at the bottom of the pyramid will have a profound effect on the rest of the globe. How they learn and how they learn to learn will shape the cultures of all global organizations.
And the challenge to traditional classroom-based education is not coming only from K-12 educators. Educational leaders, parents, policy makers, and students themselves are demanding results from their investment in colleges and universities. Computer technology is beginning to provide a solution and it is not in the classroom.
Tom Friedman, in a column for the New York Times, writes:
Institutions of higher learning must move, as the historian Walter Russell Mead puts it, from a model of “time served” to a model of “stuff learned.” Because increasingly the world does not care what you know. Everything is on Google. The world only cares, and will only pay for, what you can do with what you know. And therefore it will not pay for a C+ in chemistry, just because your state college considers that a passing grade and was willing to give you a diploma that says so. We’re moving to a more competency-based world where there will be less interest in how you acquired the competency — in an online course, at a four-year-college or in a company-administered class — and more demand to prove that you mastered the competency.
Online course (free!) providers, such as Coursera, are starting to offer options for measuring competency and thus recognize “stuff learned” and not just “time served”.
The training and development industry needs to change also. The method of training is still based predominately on a centuries-old model of teacher-centered, classroom instruction while most of what employees need to learn would be learned more effectively if it was a combination of “elearning” and on-the-job coaching. It might be, as Mitra suggests, that even “knowing” is obsolete because anything we need to know can be found in the cloud within a few minutes.
I say all of this with a strong caveat. Some knowledge and skills are best developed, or at least supported, in a structured classroom environment, such as much of the social sciences and literature, subjects in which a facilitated discussion is essential to learning. So I think the classroom, whether in a school, college, or business, still has a place. However, currently we rely much too heavily on this method of developing young people and employees. As I wrote in a previous blog post, “Throw out the course catalog.” | <urn:uuid:13184362-0864-4331-b70e-b83ba656c17d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://stephenjgill.typepad.com/performance_improvement_b/2013/03/are-classrooms-obsolete.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971534 | 662 | 2.921875 | 3 |
I'd started with a note on potential temperature, the vertical structure of the atmosphere, gas laws, and a few other things. After much typing, I realized that I'd done much typing and hence you'd have a lot of reading to do. So I'll divide things up a bit and hope that the result is more manageable and understandable.
In the introducing the atmosphere note, I mentioned that in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and upper atmosphere (mesosphere), temperatures decreased with height. This is true, but if you've heard about 'hot air rises', I hope it gave you some discomfort. We'll ultimately solve the problem by understanding potential temperature. But first, let's think some more about the vertical.
The troposphere is where we live, and where almost all of what we think of as 'weather' happens. It is between something like 10 and 20 km thick. Above this, is the stratosphere. It is where the ozone layer is, and temperatures are constant or increasing with height. It runs from the top of the troposphere, that 10-20 km elevation, to the base of the mesosphere (something like 50 km). The mesosphere runs from the something like 50 km to something like 80 km. Finally, above the 80 km, is the thermosphere, by which time the atmosphere is so thin that different processes take over.
The 'something like' values there should make you uncomfortable. Even more so, that 10-20 km thickness of the troposphere. Why should it vary by so much? Partly, what is happening is that in hotter parts of the atmosphere (the tropics), pressure drops more slowly with height than in cold parts (the polar regions). If we use a thickness that relates to mass (pressure) rather than temperature, we find that the troposphere is between 700 (polar) and 900 (tropics) mb thick. Still thicker in the tropics, but no longer a factor of 2, so this is progress.
Average atmospheric pressure at sea level is 1013.25 mb. This is a pressure of a column of air over you standing at that point. So the tropospheric thicknesses say that the troposphere is 70-90% of the mass of the atmosphere over a given point. If we used elevations instead, then the troposphere is only 10-20% of your vertical -- the remainder being the very thin gases of the stratosphere, and even thinner gases in the mesosphere.
The stratosphere, then, is from the 100-300 mb level (above 70-90% of the mass of the atmosphere) to about the 1 mb level. In other words, it and the troposphere jointly account for 99.9% of the mass of the atmosphere. The mesosphere runs from about 1 mb to about 0.01 mb. Add this in, and we've got 99.999 % of the atmosphere.
In terms of building models of the atmosphere, and for observing it, the pressure levels make many things easier. If we took meters (or feet) in the vertical, and spaced evenly, then we waste 80-90% of the levels on parts of the atmosphere that don't have the weather we're interested in. If we take pressure (the mb -- millibars), then we only 'waste' 10-30%, a big improvement. For observing, it is easier to build a pressure gauge than to sense the elevation above the ground. (Often, even elsewhere, pressure is used instead of elevation, such as for aviation). Radiosondes, then, report in terms of the pressure they're experiencing at the time of an observation.
If we were being strictly correct, I should be replacing references to millibars (mb) with hectopascals (hPa). The latter (well, Pascal) is the official scientific unit for pressure. 1 mb = 1 hPa, though, so we can just swap them. In other units, 1 mm mercury is a bit more than 1 mb, there being 760 mm Hg in a standard atmosphere to the 1013.25 mb. Inches of mercury ... well, my great grandmother's barometer uses that (only) but it's not even close to what's used in science and hasn't been for a long time. Then there are pounds per square inch (14.7 being standard atmosphere), and a host of others. I'm lazy about the mb versus hPa label because a) it's what I learned first b) it's in more common use in the US than hPa and c) most importantly, the conversion factor is 1. Still, if you're a younger reader, get used to the hPa and practice translating to it in your mind rather than perpetuate the erroneous mb. | <urn:uuid:ac260f97-0846-453c-8c10-f48662068bc1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2008/09/atmosphere-in-vertical.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944508 | 989 | 3.78125 | 4 |
Scientists are getting much closer to achieving a perfect "cloak of invisibility," this time using a diamond-shaped device to help clean up some of the loose ends from previous attempts.
Building on research done in 2006, electrical engineers at Duke University in Durham, N.C., have improved how the edges of their "cloak" work, allowing light to pass around an object without reflections so that the human eye can't see it. Light waves are bent around the object, making it appear not to be there.
The trick was to use a diamond-shaped cloak developed by graduate student Nathan Landy with properties carefully matched at the diamond's corners, to move light waves perfectly around a cylinder.
The researchers say they have used "a similar row-by-row design" to previous attempts, but added copper strips to create a more complicated — and better performing — material.
The results of their work were published Nov. 11 in the online journal Nature Materials.
David R. Smith — who worked on the previous research — and Landy say the new findings could be important in transforming how light or other waves can be controlled or transmitted.
In the same way that wires gave way to fiber optics, the new meta-material could change the way light and waves are transmitted.
In earlier attempts, the materials used allowed for some "wave loss," which meant people could see cloaked objects around the edges. The effect was akin to being able to see reflections in a piece of clear glass, while still seeing through it .
"Since the goal was to demonstrate the basic principles of cloaking, we didn't worry about these reflections," Landy said in a Duke release.
Those reflections have now been reduced using a different strategy with added copper strips. The original cloak consisted of parallel and intersecting strips of fiberglass etched with copper.
"This to our knowledge is the first cloak that really addresses getting the transformation exactly right to get you that perfect invisibility," Smith told BBC News.
"It's like the card people in Alice in Wonderland. If they turn on their sides, you can't see them, but they're obviously visible if you look from the other direction."
The research was partly funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and the Army Research Office.
More from Huffington Post Science: | <urn:uuid:bceb6ed2-33c8-4653-b000-8362dd4b1fa4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/11/12/cloak-of-invisibility_n_2118379.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966891 | 473 | 3.328125 | 3 |
PHIL 450: Study Questions for Foundationalist-Coherentist Hybrids
and Contextualist Theories
1. Explain or distinguish the following terms. You may use examples to do so:
Experiential S-evidence/experiential C-evidence (in Haack's account)
2. (a) What is Haack's response to the boundary problem? (b) What is the most important difference between Haack's and Chisholm's responses to the boundary problem? (c) How would you respond to the boundary problem? Explain.
3. (a) What is the analogy that Haack uses to explain her Foundherentism? (b) In the analogy, what corresponds to an individual belief? (c) In the analogy, what corresponds to experiential input? (d) In the analogy, what corresponds to relations of explanatory integration among beliefs? [In your answer, use the analogy to explain how explanatory integration can involve two (or multiple) directions of rational support among beliefs.] (e) In the analogy, what corresponds to a ratification of Haack's Foundherentism?
4. (a) According to Haack there are two kinds of evidence for a belief? What are they? (b) According to Haack, each of the two kinds of evidence has two aspects? What are they? Explain them with examples. (c) Suppose I have a premonition that the Red Sox will win the World Series. According to Haack, can that premonition be evidence for my belief that the Red Sox will win the World Series? Explain. (d) According to Haack, can that premonition be good evidence for my belief that the Red Sox will win the World Series? Explain.
5. (a) Why is Haack not a foundationalist? (b) Why is Haack not a coherentist? (c) What is her solution to the input problem? In your answer, give an example of how Haack would specify the content (or part of the content) of one of your experiences. You must give the precise content of your experience with a proposition.
6. (a) How does Haack's ratification of Foundherentism differ from a Meta-Justification? (b) Why might someone object that her ratification of Foundherentism is circular? (Explain the sense in which it would be claimed to be circular.) (c) How might Haack respond to the claim that her ratification of Foundherentism is circular?
7. (a) What does Annis mean by "contextually basic belief"? Give an example of one. (b) According to Annis, what other features of justification are context-dependent? Explain them. (c) Is Annis's theory an adequate theory of epistemic justification? Explain your answer.
8. (a) Suppose that Author A has an account of empirical justification according to which beliefs with feature F are justified. What would be required for there to be a meta-justification of A's account of empirical justification? (b) For each of the following authors, either explain how they would give a meta-justification of their account of empirical justification or explain why they would deny that they needed to give one:
10. For each of the authors on the following list, state whether their epistemology is top-down or bottom-up and explain: | <urn:uuid:ee699baf-d371-4cee-a2fa-702215a93ed4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://faculty.washington.edu/wtalbott/phil450/sqhybrid.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935406 | 701 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The source code to this project is now available in full, at: http://imrannazar.com/content/files/android-sobel.zip
In the previous part of this set of articles, I began an introduction to augmented reality, using the simple example of edge detection on Android smartphones; in that part, the camera hardware was introduced, and the framework of an application developed for the use of the camera preview. In this concluding part, the edge detection algorithm itself and its implementation will be explored.
The Sobel operator
The algorithm that will be used is the Sobel operator, which works as a filter applied to each pixel in an image. The process iterates over each pixel in a row of the image, and over each row in turn, performing a factorised multiplication for each pixel value:
The calculation of the Sobel operator index can be simplified in two ways:
- Removal of multiplication: Some of the indices used by the algorithm are zero, which means that the associated terms are not used in the calculation at all; conversely, some indices are negative, which means a negative value must be added. Replacing multiplications with addition and subtraction of terms means that fewer operations are required to produce the value, making the calculation quicker.
- Approximation of Pythagorean addition: For the purposes of this application, an exact value for the resultant Sobel value is not required, merely an approximation; a relatively close approximation of the Pythagorean operator is a simple average of the two values involved. This average will always be higher than the actual value, but will serve as a fair replacement.
With these modifications, the calculation can be adapted to the following.
Before this filter can be applied to the camera preview image, the image must be taken from the camera and made ready for processing.
Handling the Camera Preview
As introduced in Part 1, the camera hardware is capable of automatically calling a predefined function whenever a frame of the preview is ready; this function is referred to as the "preview callback", and receives a
byte containing the raw image data. By default, the preview image is in
NV21 format, a standard luminance/chrominance format; for the example of a 320x240 pixel NV21 image:
- The first 76,800 bytes of the image are a direct luminance map, with each byte corresponding to a "brightness" or greyscale value for the corresponding pixel in the image;
- The following 38,400 bytes are a 2x2 subsampling of chrominance: for each 2x2-pixel block in the image, one byte encodes a U-chrominance, and the following byte a V-value.
It's relatively straightforward to perform a Sobel calculation on the luminance part of the NV21 image, and a thresholded result can be placed into the overlay canvas for each output pixel:
src/sobel/OverlayView.java: Sobel operation
The above code, when run as part of the camera preview, yields the following view.
Optimising the operation
As written, there's a problem with this application: speed. When run on a hardware device, the overlay calculation is incapable of maintaining a near-real-time speed of augmented display; in the case of my own hardware, a rendering speed of around 3 frames per second was achieved. This is due, in the main, to the calculations being performed within a buffer of managed memory in the Dalvik virtual machine: every access to the camera preview data is checked for boundary conditions, as is every pixel value written to the overlay canvas. All of these checks for boundary conditions take time away from the Sobel operation.
To alleviate this issue, the calculation can be performed in native code bypassing the virtual machine; this is done through the Android Native Development Kit (NDK). The NDK is an implementation of the Java Native Interface (JNI), and as such behaves in a very similar way to standard JNI: native code is placed into functions conforming to a particular naming standard, and they can then be called from the Java VM as specially marked
NDK native functions are named according to the package and class they're destined for: the standard format is
Java_<package>_<class>_<function>. In this particular case, the destination is package
sobel and class
OverlayView, so the interface can be built as below.
jni/native.c: NDK processing interface
src/sobel/OverlayView.java: Native function definition
Note that in the above code, the
int array used beforehand for overlay output has been replaced by an
IntBuffer; this is to allow access to the raw memory buffer for native work, since a standard
int has memory allocated by the JVM, and cannot be written to by the JNI.
Buffers are designed to allow direct access to the buffer memory through the object's
GetDirectBufferAddress function, which we can use for writing the output of the Sobel operation.
The Java code shown above for the operation can be translated directly to C code, as below:
jni/native.c: Sobel implementation
src/sobel/OverlayView.java: Calling the native function
Once the Java code has been configured to call the native function for processing, the lack of extraneous work by the JVM results in a significant speed-up: under testing on my hardware, a speed of 15-20 frames per second was easily achievable, and this can be improved through further optimisation of the algorithm.
The Android documentation for the NDK states:
"Using native code does not result in an automatic performance increase, but always increases application complexity."
In the case of the memory-intensive processing presented here, the NDK has a significant advantage over the Java virtual machine, in that it doesn't perform bounds checking on array and pointer accesses. Since most augmented reality applications will need to work on the camera preview image, and provide an overlay on top of the preview, the technique of shunting processing into an NDK function can be useful.
Imran Nazar <email@example.com>, May 2011.
Article dated: 21st May 2011 | <urn:uuid:bd31792c-06c7-4500-860a-679771768018> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://imrannazar.com/Augmented-Reality-with-the-Android-NDK%3A-Part-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900678 | 1,293 | 3 | 3 |
Start a Journal for
the questions that will appear in the booklets and upcoming
reports. Start with these “big” questions and
add thoughts as the migration unfolds:
1. Why is the word “bold” used to describe this project?
2. What are the risks, and to whom?
Connections: Young cranes must be taught where to migrate,
but not how to fly. They are genetically programmed to fly; they
do it by instinct. What things do YOU do by instinct? What things
did you need to be taught?
the History: In 1954 the long-sought Whooping Crane nesting grounds
were discovered, quite by accident, along the northern edge of
Canada's vast Wood Buffalo National park. The discovery was key
to saving this endangered species, and to the establishment of
the new Eastern flock through ultralight-led migraitons. Read
the story in Journey North's slide show: The
Big Egg Hunt: Saving Whooping Cranes | <urn:uuid:34ab7a4b-d01a-4284-a022-82e24a08cf6f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/crane/jr/CraneComebackTT.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912077 | 211 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Bomb-sniffing dogs (and their noses) have for some time been part of federal efforts to detect drugs and explosives at airports and other checkpoints.
Now, a new $228,977 3-D printer will churn out some of the best artificial dog noses anywhere.
Because dogs are precision sniffers able to distinguish odors from a greater distance than ordinary vacuums, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology wondered how much the shape of the creatures’ noses factored into their skill.
The researchers began 3-D printing anatomically correct artificial noses modeled after a female Labrador retriever.
The devices expel strong airjets away from the nostrils — as real dogs do, when exhaling — which helps pull in new smelly air “from impressive distances,“ according to NIST scientist Matthew Staymates. The process repeats up to five times a second.
Dog noses have about 50 times as many olfactory receptors as humans and a huge portion of their brains are devoted to processing that data, according to Paul Waggoner, senior scientist at Auburn University’s Canine Detection Research Institute who is not directly involved with the NIST project.
But the quick sniffs help, too. In fact, Waggoner said. “If you watch or look at somebody who’s apprenticed to become a master wine or food taster, they begin to take on some of the same characteristics,” he said, referring to the repeated inhales.
Staymates and his colleagues at NIST’s Material Measurement Laboratory use their printed noses in “flow visualization experiments in our schlieren optical system,” he said, referring to a device that can visually render variation in air temperature and density and thus colorfully depict vapor flows.
The research — published in a host of specialized scientific journals — informs security-checkpoint technology developed by the private sector.
The new printer, the Connex 500, is able to print multiple substances into one object, so designers can specify the hard and soft parts of the model dog nose.
The printer — which won’t be used solely or even primarily for dog noses, by the way — has been sitting for several weeks on a pallet near its new home among other additive manufacturing machines at NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland, waiting for installation by employees of Stratasys, the company that makes the printers.
The agency originally ordered a Connex 350, but Stratasys offered the NIST an upgrade to the Connex 500 for no additional cost, NIST officials said.
The artificial noses aren’t actually used at security checkpoints. “This is strictly a research tool that we’re using in a larger research program,” Staymates said. But the scientists do share their findings, which inform tomorrow’s vapor sampling devices. | <urn:uuid:f10b7265-f4c1-45b4-8824-001038d6020e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/10/researchers-use-3d-printing-create-bomb-sniffing-dog-noses/96956/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936887 | 595 | 2.625 | 3 |
Definition of sit up
1a : to rise from a lying to a sitting positionb : to sit with the back erect
2 : to show interest, alertness, or surprise <sit up and take notice>
3 : to stay up after the usual time for going to bed
First Known Use of sit up
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up sit up? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). | <urn:uuid:c5d2666b-d544-4644-b91e-73973e1bce71> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sit%20up | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00035-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898172 | 98 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Robert Adam (1728–92) was one of the most important British architects working in the Neo-classical style. He was a main force in the development of a unified style that extended beyond architecture and interiors to include both the fixed and moveable objects in a room. He incorporated design ideas from ancient Greece and Rome into his forms and decoration. His famous London houses include Kenwood House, Osterley Park and Syon House.
Born in Kirkaldy, Scotland, Robert Adam was the son of the established architect William Adam, and followed him into the family practice. In 1754 he embarked on a ‘Grand Tour’, spending five years in France and Italy visiting classical sites and studying architecture. On his return Adam established his own practice in London with his brother James. Although classical architecture was already becoming popular, Adam developed his own style, known as the Adam style or Adamesque. This style was influenced by classical design but did not follow Roman architectural rules as strictly as Palladianism did. | <urn:uuid:bd2395f4-e3f1-488e-a8df-ab7be0605800> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/robert-adam-neo-classical-architect/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98483 | 208 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Arsenic Pentachloride - AsCl5
Uppingham School, Rutland, UK
HTML version: Click on any of the molecule images to access the 3D coordinate files of the molecule, which can be viewed with a suitable plug-in.
Also available: Chime Enhanced, VRML and Jmol versions.
What's special about AsCl5?
They said it couldn't be made.
PCl5 and SbCl5 were first prepared in the early 19th century, but AsCl5 could not be made, and it was speculated that it was too unstable to exist.
Of course not, otherwise we wouldn't be reading this, but it took a special method to make it.
In 1976, the German chemist Konrad Seppelt (right) found that it could be prepared if a cold mixture of AsCl3 and Cl2 was irradiated with UV light at -100°C,
AsCl3 + Cl2 AsCl5
It decomposes at temperatures above -60°C.
Why does this method work?
The UV light splits the chlorine molecule into reactive chlorine atoms, which can combine with the AsCl3 to form molecules of AsCl5 which have not got enough energy to shake themselves apart again.
So how do we know AsCl5 has been made, if it is only stable at low temperatures?
In his original study, Seppelt examined the vibrational (Raman) spectrum of the reaction mixture at regular intervals. As time went on, the spectrum changed from that of AsCl3 to one characteristic of AsCl5, resembling the known spectra of PCl5 and SbCl5. However, the clincher is that the structure of AsCl5 is now known.
How did they do that?
A quarter of a century after his original discovery, Seppelt and his student Silvia Haupt succeded in making yellow crystals of this unstable substance at -125°C by crystallisation from solutions in CHFCl2. X-ray diffraction studies show it has the expected trigonal bipyramidal structure in the solid state. The axial As-Cl distances are 220.7 pm whilst the equatorial As-Cl bonds are 210.6 and 211.9 (averaging 211.45) pm.
Surely all the As-Cl bonds are the same?
No, they aren't. The electron pairs in the "axial" bonds have three 90° repulsions with electron pairs in the "equatorial" bonds, whilst the electron pairs in the equatorial bonds have only two 90° repulsions. It would therefore be predicted that repulsions involving the axial bonds would be stronger and that these bonds would therefore be longer, as is the case.
Is that a one-off idea, or is it generally true?
AsF5 also has a trigonal bipyramidal structure, with As-F (axial) 171.9 pm and As-F (equatorial) 166.8 pm in the gas phase. Molecules of AsF5 are also present in crystals, having As-F (axial) 171.1 pm and As-F (equatorial) 165.6 pm.
PF5 has a similar structure. Gas phase PF5 molecules have a D3h structure (P-F (axial) 158 pm and P-F (equatorial) 153 pm ; in the solid state at -164°C, P-F (axial) is 158.0 pm and P-F (equatorial) is 152.2 pm.
However, when chemists studied the 19F NMR spectrum of PF5, they saw only one signal, even at -100°C, showing there was only one environment for fluorines, which is not what was predicted. It has been suggested that there is interchange of fluorine atoms between the axial and equatorial positions that is rapid on the NMR timescale, the so-called Berry pseudorotation (see image below), which proceeds via a square pyramidal intermediate. In this process, two equatorial bonds (shown in red) move away from each other and become axial bonds at the same time as the axial bonds (green) move together to become equatorial. Animations of this process can be seen in Chime or in Quicktime.
The structure of PCl5 is even more complicated, however.
In the gas phase, it does indeed contain PCl5 molecules, with P-Cl (axial) = 212.4 pm and P-Cl (equatorial) = 201.7 pm. However, crystals of PCl5 are composed of [PCl4]+ and [PCl6]- ions. (P-Cl in the tetrahedral [PCl4]+ ions is 190 pm whilst P-Cl in the octahedral [PCl6]- ions is 211-216 pm).
In addition to that, a metastable solid-state phase is also known that has the structure [PCl4+]2 [PCl6-] Cl-.
And in solutions?
In polar solvents such as MeCN, MeNO2 or CCl4, it is made of monomeric PCl5 molecules in association with a dimer.
So PBr5 does something similar?
No, PBr5 tends to change to a mixture of PBr3 and Br2 in the gas phase, whilst in the solid state, PBr5 is made of PBr4+ and Br- ions. The P-Br bond lengths in the PBr4+ ions are 213 to 217 pm.
Why is it different to PCl5?
Because they are bigger than chlorine atoms, it seems that six bromines cannot attach to the same phosphorus atom, there are too many non-bonding repulsions.
How about PI5?
No one is sure if it exists. In 1978, it was reported to have been made, as black-brown crystals, from the reaction of PCl5 (in solution in CH3I) and MI (M = Li, Na or K). However, so far there are no confirmatory reports of its structure.
And SbCl5 is complicated too?
No, it's relatively simple. SbCl5, which is stable to 140°C, can readily be made from the reaction of SbCl3 and Cl2. However, whilst solid SbCl5 has the expected molecular structure at room temperature, below -54.1°C it changes reversibly to a dimeric molecule, Cl4Sb(m-Cl)2SbCl4. In the SbCl5 molecules, Sb-Cl (axial) distances are 233.3 pm and Sb-Cl (equatorial) distances are 227.04 pm.
Why should this happen?
Sb is a bigger atom than As, so it is not surprising that it finds it easier to accommodate six chlorine atoms round it. It is possible that AsCl5 could dimerise at very low temperatures, since six coordinate [AsCl6]- and [AsCl5(Me3PO)] species are known.
Why is AsCl5 so unstable anyway?
The effect has been ascribed to the stabilisation of a 4s2 electron pair in the elements following the 3d transition metals, caused by incomplete shielding of the nucleus lowering the energy of the 4s orbital and making it harder to promote 4s electrons. So AsCl3 is more stable than AsCl5. A similar reason has been given for other facets of the behaviour of these elements, such as the difficulty in making the perbromate ion.
The capacity of chemistry to surprise is not exhausted, whilst the skill and ingenuity of modern chemists in studying molecules under unfavourable conditions continues to know no bounds.
|PCl5||J.J.Berzelius, Ann.Phys. (Leipzig), 1816, 53, 393.
A.J.Balard, Ann.Chim.Phys. , 1826, 32, 374.
|AsCl5||K. Seppelt, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl, 1976, 15, 377.
S. Haupt and K. Seppelt, Z. Anorg. Allgem. Chem., 2002, 628, 729.
|SbCl5||H. Rose, Pogg. Ann., 1825, 3, 443.
A. Haagen, Pogg. Ann, 1867, 131, 122.
|PI5||N.G.Feshchenko, V.G.Kostina and A.V.Kirsanov, J. Gen. Chem. USSR, 1978, 48, 196..|
|AsCl5||S. Haupt and K. Seppelt, Z. Anorg. Allgem. Chem., 2002, 628, 729.|
|AsF5||J. Köhler, A. Simon and R. Hoppe, Z. Anorg. Allgem. Chem, 1989, 575, 55 (solid).
F.B. Clippard and L.S. Bartell, Inorg. Chem., 1970, 9, 805 (gas).
|PF5||D. Mootz and M. Wiebcke, Z. Anorg. Allgem. Chem., 1987, 545, 39. (solid).
V.P. Spiridonov, A.A. Ischenko and L.S. Ivashkevich, J. Mol. Str., 1981, 72, 153 (gas).
|PCl5||B.W. McClelland, L. Hedberg and K. Hedberg, J. Mol. Str 1983, 99, 309 (gas)
H. Preiss, Z. Anorg. Allgem. Chem., 1971, 380, 51 (solid).
H.D.B. Jenkins, K.P. Thakur, A. Finch and P.N. Gates, Inorg. Chem., 1982, 21, 423 (metastable form).
|PBr5||H.M. Powell, J. Chem. Soc., 1942, 64.
W. Gabes and K. Olie, Acta Crystallogr. Sect.B, 1970, 26, 443.
Back to Molecule of the Month page. | <urn:uuid:e0f55661-32b9-48a3-b418-5f03f6e18958> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/ascl5/ascl5h.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00035-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917331 | 2,185 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Dynamics of marine zooplankton : social behavior ecological interactions, and physically-induced variability
MetadataShow full item record
Marine ecosystems reflect the physical structure of their environment and the biological processes they carry out. This leads to spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability, some of which is imposed externally and some of which emerges from the ecological mechanisms themselves. The main focus of this thesis is on the formation of spatial patterns in the distribution of zooplankton arising from social interactions between individuals. In the Southern Ocean, krill often assemble in swarms and schools, the dynamics of which have important ecological consequences. Mathematical and numerical models are employed to study the interplay of biological and physical processes that contribute to the observed patchiness. The evolution of social behavior is simulated in a theoretical framework that includes zooplankton population dynamics, swimming behavior, and some aspects of the variability inherent to fluid environments. First, I formulate a model of resource utilization by a stage-structured predator population with density-dependent reproduction. Second, I incorporate the predator-prey dynamics into a spatially-explicit model, in which aggregations develop spontaneously as a result of linear instability of the uniform distribution. In this idealized ecosystem, benefits related to the local abundance of mates are offset by the cost of having to share resources with other group members. Third, I derive a weakly nonlinear approximation for the steady-state distributions of predator and prey biomass that captures the spatial patterns driven by social tendencies. Fourth, I simulate the schooling behavior of zooplankton in a variable environment; when turbulent flows generate patchiness in the resource field, schools can forage more efficiently than individuals. Taken together, these chapters demonstrate that aggregation/ schooling can indeed be the favored behavior when (i) reproduction (or other survival measures) increases with density in part of the range and (ii) mixing of prey into patches is rapid enough to offset the depletion. In the final two chapters, I consider sources of temporal variability in marine ecosystems. External perturbations amplified by nonlinear ecological interactions induce transient excursions away from equilibrium; in predator-prey dynamics the amplitude and duration of these transients are controlled by biological processes such as growth and mortality. In the Southern Ocean, large-scale winds associated with ENSO and the Southern Annular Mode cause convective mixing, which in turn drives air-sea fluxes of carbon dioxide and oxygen. Whether driven by stochastic fluctuations or by climatic phenomena, variability of the biogeochemical/physical environment has implications for ecosystem dynamics.
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2008
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
Ecology of Duck Pond, Wellfleet, Massachusetts with special reference to the vertical distribution of the zooplankton MacCoy, Clinton V. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1958-08)During the summers of 1956 and 1957 an investigation was made of certain ecological relations involving light in Duck Pond, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, because of the unusually high clarity of the water. The maximum ...
The distribution, abundance and ecology of mixotrophic algae in marine and freshwater plankton communities Arenovski, Andrea L. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1994-09)Mixotrophic algae are algae that combine photosynthesis with phagotrophy to satisfy nutritional requirements. Mixotrophic algae have been found to dominate the nanoplankton assemblage in some aquatic environments, and ...
The ecology, life history, and phylogeny of the marine thecate heterotrophic dinoflagellates Protoperidinium and Diplopsalidaceae (Dinophyceae) Gribble, Kristin E. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2006-09)Marine thecate heterotrophic dinoflagellates likely play an important role in the consumption of primary productivity and in the trophic structure of the plankton, yet we know little about these species. This thesis ... | <urn:uuid:daf671b8-72cf-4d8f-a247-f643966fdedb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org/handle/1912/2219 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.889215 | 854 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Mistletoe (Viscum album) is actually a shrub, albeit a parasitic one, that grows exclusively on stem of other trees. It lives by seeping nutrients out of the tree using structures embedded deep in the wood. It prefers to live in broad-leaved trees, like apples, lime and poplar trees.
Ancient cultures have long used mistletoe as medicine, and religious purposes. Druids used it in fertility rites and in healing diseases such as tumors, insomnia and mental problems. Today, there’s a renewed interest in using mistletoe tea in addressing conditions such as cancer, heart diseases and hypertension. In laboratory, mistletoe extracts are shown to kill tumor cells but the problem is how to channel it into cancer cells without being metabolized by the liver. More studies are needed before mistletoe can be used reliably against cancer.
Mistletoes used in teas are known as European Mistletoes. It is native to Europe and southern areas of Asia.
Effects on Muscles
Mistletoe has a profound effect on muscles of the body; most especially on specialized muscles found in uterus, arteries and intestines. Mistletoe tea is great in calming these muscles, which is somewhat beneficial in conditions such as amenorrhea, indigestion or dyspepsia. But using mistletoe tea for hypertension may not be good because it has both hypertensive and hypotensive effects.
Men may find mistletoe tea useful to lower down muscular metabolism after workout to induce rest.
Calming Effect of Mistletoe Tea
Mistletoe herbal tea helps calm the body’s senses mostly without causing analgesia or drowsiness. It is useful in cases such as panic attacks, irritability and anxiety.
Mistletoe Tea for Infection
Mistletoe tea is a useful wash for wounds and inflamed lesions that are in danger of infection. This makes mistletoe tea good in chilblains, leg ulcers and as compress for varicose veins. Mistletoe tea, when washed on the face, may be helpful for acne (pimples).
Contraindications of Mistletoe Tea
Effects of mistletoe to the body are not yet fully known to science; all we knew is that mistletoe has numerous compounds and some is known to be harmful to body. Therefore, very sick people, pregnant and nursing mothers should never take mistletoe. Mistletoe may cause allergies in some people, so first-time users should be watchful for symptoms (swelling, difficulty of breathing, rashes, etc.)
People who are taking drugs for medical conditions should consult their doctors first before taking mistletoe tea because of danger of drug interactions. For example, a person on anti-hypertensive medication who took mistletoe tea may experience dangerous drop of blood pressure.
Preparing Mistletoe Tea
People have known for years that some parts of Mistletoe plant is poisonous such as stalks, roots and berries. Some commercialized tea bags of Mistletoe may actually contain young stalks, berries and adulterants, so it’s better to use fresh leaves instead.
There are two ways to prepare Mistletoe tea. Dried leaves maybe infused in hot water (1 tsp. to 1 pint of water) for 10-15 minutes. Or, fresh leaves can be torn into pieces and soaked in tap water for at least 12 hours. | <urn:uuid:a190857c-e7e7-496d-9129-c0ce2099ab3e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://finest-herbal-tea.com/2012/06/what-are-mistletoe-tea-benefits/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94713 | 713 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Learn all the Kiwi Fruit Facts so that you can learn all about
how easy Growing Kiwi can be if taught properly, also learn about kiwi vines, kiwi trees, kiwi nutrition and everything you could possibly want and need to know about the fabulous tropical kiwi fruit!
Did you know that kiwi plants scientific name is Actinidia Deliciosa? But most of us only know them as Kiwi fruit.
Kiwi Fruit Facts... It was first discovered in Southern China but wasn't exported until 1952 to England, and then in the early 20th century it was finally introduced to the western world.
The very first successfully grown crop in California wasn't until 1970, so this fruit had to wait quite some time before its trip to the United States.
Ok, you decided you want to grow Kiwi fruits... Growing kiwi is one of my favorites to grow and its first on my fruit list of Tropical Fruit Trees, because of the taste and the healthy calories in kiwi not to mention kiwi fruit nutrition, its great for your hair and skin, helps aid children suffering from asthma, and also helps in decreasing the chances of colon cancer by providing a good amount of dietary fiber.
Kiwi Fruit Fact.. the kiwi has a fine hairy brown skin, with the center being a green fleshy color, with white pulp in the center, that is surrounded by black, edible seeds.
This is a sweet fresh tasting fruit that has a similar texture of strawberry, pineapple and banana all combined.
How to grow kiwi and Kiwi Fruit Facts... If you are going to purchase an established tree from a nursery you will need a male and female plant so that they can mate or pollinate in order to produce fruit.
So yes, you need to buy two of them and like I said earlier then just let nature do its course. It’s best to plat them after the last frost.
To help guarantee thy will survive try planting them in a five gallon container for the first season.
These tropical fruit trees of Kiwi fruits will for the most part grow rapidly, but only if you prepare the soil properly for its desired conditions.
When planting use a good nutrient rich fertilizer mixed in with the existing soil before placing in the plant then around it.
Dig the hole twice a big as the existing root ball, make sure to gently pull the roots apart so they have been loosened up from the container it grew in.
Give it lots of water at first and use something like miracle-gro quick start. This helps to stimulate the roots to help them become established.
Kiwis like to be fertilized so make sue that in the beginning of spring use a balanced fertilizer high in nitrogen, such as fish meal or any pre mixed fertilizer purchased form any nursery. | <urn:uuid:df9b428d-0809-491c-b8a4-f8beef1d826f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tropical-plants-flowers-and-decor.com/kiwi-fruit-facts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958455 | 586 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Ant Impostor Glorifies God's Creativity
Deep inside an ant colony, perhaps in a decaying log in northern Idaho or even the north woods of Minnesota, there are ants who only think they are taking care of their pupae. In addition to attending to their young, however, they are providing a dangerous ant predator with food and protection as it matures. The predator, called Microdon, matures into a fly like creature that lives only long enough to mate and lay eggs.
How does Microdon get welcomed into the ant's nest? It folds itself in half and ends up looking just like an ant larva. When researchers exposed some of the fly larvae in an ant nest, the ants quickly rescued the folded-over Microdon as if they were ant larvae. During its first of three larval stages, Microdon enters an ant cocoon and eats the contents. During its two later stages, Microdon moves unchallenged about the nest, eating more ant larvae. This fact at first puzzled researchers, since ants communicate and identify each other through specialized chemical signals. Further research revealed that Microdon are actually able to perfectly mimic this chemical communication! But perhaps the most fascinating feature of Microdon are the odd structures found on the outside of its third stage. These vary from individual to individual and may look like toadstools or flowers. Scientists are unsure of their purpose. But they do marvel over the rich variety of the shapes, which seem unnecessary. While such variety may be unnecessary, they and the other features of Microdon testify to the rich creativity of our Creator God. | <urn:uuid:2282413d-86e4-41a0-a57a-814cee57b46a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.creationmoments.com/node/2204 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00089-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964501 | 323 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Locate a Local Criminal Lawyer
What Are Criminal Fines?
A criminal fine is a type criminal punishment that is imposed against those who violate the law. Criminal fines are mostly reserved for less serious and non-violent crimes. Their main purpose is to provide deterrence and punishment for the defendant, in attempts to prevent them from committing repeat offenses.
Thus, criminal fines are sometimes available as an alternative to a normal criminal sentence, such as time in jail or prison. However, it is not uncommon for a judge to require the defendant to both serve a jail sentence and pay a fine.
How Are the Amounts of a Criminal Fine Decided?
A criminal fine may be decided by any of three basic methods:
- Statute: A state or federal law may prescribe the exact amount that a defendant must pay as a result of guilty charges. For example, the statute may state, “Any person who is convicted of this crime shall pay a fine of $5,000”. The statute may also place a limit on the amount for the fine, for example, “no more than $5,000”.
- Type of Crime: Sometimes the amount of the fine depends on the type of crime. For example, a criminal fine for theft may be “equal to the amount of money stolen”. Or, for a property crime, the fine may be “twice the amount of the property damage”.
- Judge’s Discretion: Many jurisdictions allow a judge to determine the amount of fines according to what they feel is appropriate. The judge may also require a fine in addition to other penalties such as a prison sentence or mandatory counseling.
Thus, a criminal fine may or may not be set in stone. If the fine is determined by statute, the defendant is likely to have a difficult time arguing for a reduced fine. On the other hand, if the fine was determined by the judge, there is a possibility that the defendant and their lawyer can present evidence supporting a reduction in fines.
What If a Defendant Cannot Pay a Criminal Fine?
There is a big difference between simply refusing to pay a criminal fine, versus not being able to pay for the fine. If the defendant simply refuses to pay, this is often considered another violation and may lead to further legal consequences. For example, the defendant may be placed in contempt of court, which can result in the imposition of the original sentence, more jail time, or yet another criminal fine.
On the other hand, a defendant is not let off the hook if they can’t afford to pay a criminal fine. A court will likely obtain the payment through a variety of court-enforced collection methods including:
- Wage Garnishment: If the defendant is employed, the court garnish the person’s wages in order to satisfy the criminal fine.
- Seizure of Property: A judge may require that the defendant’s personal property or financial assets be seized and sold at a public auction. The proceeds from the sale will then be used to pay the criminal fine.
- Lien: A court may enforce a lien against the defendant’s real property, such as a home or condominium holding. The property will then be sold and the money will go towards the criminal fine.
If the defendant feels that a fine is too high in comparison to the crime committed, they may be able to persuade the judge to reduce or waive the fines. For example, a defendant may have a claim under the 8th Amendment, which prohibits courts from imposing excessive fines.
Do I Need a Lawyer?
If you are facing criminal charges or are being required to pay a criminal fine, you should absolutely speak with a criminal defense lawyer for advice. It is undoubtedly to your advantage to work with an experienced and knowledgeable attorney who will be able examine the charges you are facing to determine whether a fine is appropriate, or whether it may be waived or reduced.
Consult a Lawyer - Present Your Case Now!
Last Modified: 03-01-2016 01:19 PM PST
Link to this page | <urn:uuid:564591f1-e104-4ef1-8411-94a2f4a96380> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/criminal-fines.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00030-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947613 | 843 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Tectonic plates may have inched across the Earth’s surface to where they are now over the course of billions of years, but they left behind traces of this movement in bumps and gashes under the sea. Now, a new topographic map of the seafloor has helped researchers chronicle when the Indian-Eurasian continent formed as well as find a previously undiscovered microplate that broke off as a result of the event.
NASA’s Earth Observatory released the map on Jan. 13, and it reveals the complex topography of the planet’s seafloor. By analyzing these underwater peaks and ridges, researchers can decipher how and when the plates that made up the ancient supercontinent Pangaea tore apart about 200 million years ago, resulting in the birth of new ocean crust and the formation of mountain ranges.
The map, which is bright blue and red like a heat map, was compiled by an international team of researchers using a gravity model of the ocean, which is in turn based on altimetry data from the CryoSat-2 and Jason-1 satellites. [Earth from Above: 101 Stunning Images from Orbit]
Altimetry measures the height of the sea surface from space by timing how long it takes a radar signal to reflect off the ocean and return to the satellite. The subtle highs and lows of the ocean surface mimic both seafloor topography and Earth’s gravity field, according to NASA.
The researchers used this data to discover a new piece of the puzzle: a microplate that had broken off from larger tectonic plates. The newly discovered Mammerickx Microplate, named after a pioneer in seafloor topography (Jacqueline Mammerickx), is the first to be discovered in the Indian Ocean. It is roughly the size of West Virginia or Tasmania, and its existence helped the scientists establish that the collision between the Indian plate and Eurasia — which led to the formation of the Himalayas and Mount Everest — began about 47 million years ago.
About 50 million years ago, the Indian plate was moving as fast as a tectonic plate can go — roughly 6 inches (15 centimeters) per year. When the Indian plate struck Eurasia, the entire plate slowed down and changed direction, which can be seen in the ridges in the seafloor to the south, where the Indian plate meets the Antarctic plate. The researchers were able to examine these seafloor ridges to recreate the stress the impact placed on the plate. That stress eventually ripped off a small piece of the Antarctic plate, resulting in the Mammerickx Microplate, spinning it like a ball bearing until it came to rest where it is today.
The researchers say that the same seafloor map can be used for further research on tectonic plates. But, submariners and ship captains can also use it for navigation. And with a resolution that captures detailed features as narrow as 3 miles (5 kilometers), it could also potentially be helpful to prospectors searching for oil, gas and mineral resources. | <urn:uuid:0185ea81-b7ed-4a42-b6fe-0702bfdd1d1c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.livescience.com/53420-seafloor-map-reveals-continents-evolution.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937886 | 630 | 4.21875 | 4 |
Scientists in South Korea have managed to create a dog that can be made to glow flourescent green under ulta-violet light. Even better, the glow can be turned on and off based on what the dog is fed.
This isn’t just a new “feature” someone has thought up to help sell puppies, it is in fact a step towards helping cure some of the major diseases humans suffer including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The experimental dog is a female beagle named Tegon. She was created using the same technology used for Snuppy, the first cloned dog born in 2005. What scientists realized is that because dogs share a number of the same illnesses as humans (268 in total) they can be used to help develop treatments and possible cures for them. It also helps that they manage to clear and metabolize drugs at nearly the same rate as humans.
So how does a glowing dog help? In order to make the dog glow it was modified to carry a specific gene using a somatic cell nuclear transfer. That gene allows the glowing to occur. Then, by feeding the dog a doxycycline antibiotic it can trigger the glowing. The gene used can be replaced with others that are known to cause the diseases we currently don’t know how to cure or need better treatments for. By doing this we can better understand and work to solve, or at least manage the disease by experimenting with other antibiotics in a dog.
Work will continue at the Seoul National University by lead researcher Byeong-Chun Lee, professor in the Dept. of Veterinary Medicine. Eventually, Tegon may be held up as the canine that helped lead to cures for some of the most horrible diseases we as humans currently have to suffer with. | <urn:uuid:182a078c-b3d0-47e2-8e71-98a333f941bd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/glowing-dog-may-hold-key-to-alzheimers-cure-1407089/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96773 | 363 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Designing a Safe Network Using Firewalls
These are the basic questions you should ask:
What do we need to protect?
Against whom do we need to protect?
Where do we place the firewall(s) in the network?
How do we configure the firewall?
How do we monitor what is going on?
To answer these questions correctly, it is of vital importance that you map your entire network. You don't need to map every single device in the network, since that changes often anyway. Try to map the separate subnets, the routers, the hubs and the physical locations (floors, offices, classrooms). Include the important parts of the network that you wish to secure the most.
Most firewalls are used to protect the entire Local Area Network (LAN). In this case, the Internet router usually acts as the firewall. A properly configured Internet router filters out the IP numbers used locally (for instance 10.*, 127.* ,192.x.y.*) to prevent IP spoofing. It should also filter out all packets from the outside with an IP number that normally can come only from the inside. Any packet in this category can only be an attempt to trick your machines, and it should be denied access immediately. Next, filter out any outgoing IP traffic that doesn't have your registered class of IP numbers. This is not only to prevent sending out bogus packets (or to keep your people from spoofing the Internet), it's also for your own security. In particular, Windows products tend to disregard RFCs. One day I found a Windows 95 machine that shared its local printer by giving it the IP number 126.96.36.199. If your Internet router doesn't filter out these packets, you might be routing your printed documents onto the Internet.
Another frequent use for firewalls is to protect a single machine. If you want to protect a single machine with a firewall, you must make sure it doesn't depend on anything outside the firewall; otherwise, your firewall serves no purpose apart from giving a false sense of security. If the protected server is using data from an unprotected PC, someone can falsify the information on the PC in order to do potentially serious damage to your server's data. Someone gaining access to the PC could also reach the server by pretending to be the trusted PC user. If the machine relies on other machines, you want to place your firewall a bit further upstream, so that it can protect those machines as well. NFS is a good example of an application you would not want to allow through the firewall in this setup. This type of firewall is easy to configure. Block all protocols not in use on the sensitive server, forward only those packets with the server's IP, and don't forget to prevent IP spoofing of your server's IP number from the outside.
A script to set up typical firewall rules to protect a single machine or small subnet is shown in Listing 1. Script for Typical Firewall Rules.
Obviously, real networks aren't as simple as the above examples. Most networks have various machines which are multi-homed and part of different subnets. Larger organizations, like schools, have a problem in that a lot of people have physical access to the Ethernet. The best way to protect portions of these networks is to use subnets on physically separate cables. For example, it would be an excellent policy to give the system administration office a separate subnet, since system administrators often need to use the privileged accounts.
Quite often a network you wish to protect does only a few limited tasks. On a typical administration network, people want to use the Web, e-mail, POP and quite often a telnet connection to the administrative database server (hidden in a Windows application). Masquerading works best for these networks. It makes sure the individual machines in the administrative network are not reachable (unless the masquerading host itself is compromised, which is next to impossible if it doesn't run any services), while keeping all the basic functionality of being connected to the Internet. This has an additional advantage. Often access to database servers is protected through a TCP wrapper, which allows only a certain set of hosts to access the database. For each new client machine added to the network, an entry into the appropriate /etc/hosts.* files must be made. With masquerading, this entry isn't necessary, since the new machine will be masqueraded and the IP number of the masquerading host is already known to the database server.
If you cannot physically separate the administrative network, you might want to consider using some form of encryption. Kerberos is often used in these cases, but you could also use an ssh-PPP tunnel (ssh is a key-pair encryption algorithm). With ssh you can easily create a virtual private (encrypted) network between your masquerading host(s) and your database server. That should take care of any eavesdropping risks from students booting rogue Linux machines on the network.
With complex networks, it is important to know who the threat is. The threat typically comes from the inside and not the outside, which is protected by the Internet Router/Firewall machine. Also, don't forget to protect yourself against your modem pool—IP spoofing can occur from there as well.
Fast/Flexible Linux OS Recovery
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- Sony Settles in Linux Battle
- Download "Linux Management with Red Hat Satellite: Measuring Business Impact and ROI"
- Profiles and RC Files
- Maru OS Brings Debian to Your Phone
- Snappy Moves to New Platforms
- Understanding Ceph and Its Place in the Market
- What's Our Next Fight?
- Git 2.9 Released
- The Giant Zero, Part 0.x
- Astronomy for KDE
With all the industry talk about the benefits of Linux on Power and all the performance advantages offered by its open architecture, you may be considering a move in that direction. If you are thinking about analytics, big data and cloud computing, you would be right to evaluate Power. The idea of using commodity x86 hardware and replacing it every three years is an outdated cost model. It doesn’t consider the total cost of ownership, and it doesn’t consider the advantage of real processing power, high-availability and multithreading like a demon.
This ebook takes a look at some of the practical applications of the Linux on Power platform and ways you might bring all the performance power of this open architecture to bear for your organization. There are no smoke and mirrors here—just hard, cold, empirical evidence provided by independent sources. I also consider some innovative ways Linux on Power will be used in the future.Get the Guide | <urn:uuid:01519588-40e9-45d0-be5b-7c980febeccc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2159?page=0,1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921609 | 1,461 | 3.53125 | 4 |
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by Amelia Hapsari
color, 59 min, 2008
Non-profit, K-12, and Individual pricing also available
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Above the water, the Indonesian island of Balobaloang looks like an ideal tropical paradise, with blue skies, coconut trees, and crystal water. Under the water, however, "fish bombing" with dynamite and cyanide is destroying the coral reef, threatening the marine habitat and the livelihoods of the island's inhabitants.
Traditionally, people who live in small islands in Indonesia have fished using sustainable fishing methods, and conserving and sharing resources. However, a high overseas demand for fish has created a new kind of economy, in which cargo ship owners export fish at the expense of island residents. Corruption and illegal fishing practices have made it impossible for traditional fishermen to receive a fair share of their paradise.
Collaborating with Balobaloang fishermen, the filmmakers confront illegal fishermen, government officials and police officers to investigate the dangerous new methods that threaten Balobaloang's sustainable way of life. Tackling the social, economic and environmental effects of illegal fishing, Sharing Paradise looks for solutions to the fishing problem and a more equitable, sustainable future for Balobaloang.
Official online study guide
Film Festivals, Screenings, Awards
Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, 2009
Athens Film & Video Festival, Ohio, 2009
AAA/Society for Visual Anthropology Film, Video & Multimedia Festival, 2009
Voices From the Waters Film Festival, Bangalore, India, 2009
Voices From the Waters Film Festival, Vancouver, Canada, 2009
View more photos on www.flickr.com | <urn:uuid:06cc63bb-928a-40a2-989f-f0f4b5fb9930> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.der.org/films/sharing-paradise.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.884016 | 353 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Dreamcatchers originated with the Ojibwe people, who wove these magical webs from willow hoops and sinew. The hoop represents the travel of giizis, the sun, through the sky. At night, the hole in the center only lets bawedjige, good dreams, pass. Bawedjigewin, bad dreams, are trapped in the web, and dispelled at the first light of morning.
Gathering Materials for the Dreamcatcher
1Gather your materials for your dreamcatcher. Each is described below.
2Decide what material to use for the hoop. The hoop is the basis for a dreamcatcher's shape and structure. It is usually no larger than an adult's hand. Hoops are traditionally made from dried red willow or grapevine, which is sold at many craft stores. You could also use some twigs of an olive tree or any plant which is pliable. Thin wooden branches or local grapevines can be soaked in water until soft enough to form a hoop.
- Buy about 72 inches (2 meters) of willow or grapevine, which you will use to create and wrap the hoop.
- A wood or metal hoop may also be used. Choose one that is between 3 and 8 inches (7.5 and 20.5 centimeters) in diameter.
3Buy suede lacing. The lacing is used to wrap the hoop. Choose buckskin or another leather. The width should be no greater than the width of a shoelace, and the length should be eight times the diameter of the hoop you will make. However, if suede lacing is unavailable, any other natural looking ribbon or string will do (embroidery thread is recommended).
4Choose a type of string. String is woven onto the hoop to create the dreamcatcher's web. It should be strong, but thin. Choose waxed nylon string or simulated sinew.
- The string used is traditionally white or clear, but you could also choose a colored type of string.
- The length of the string should be ten times the length of the hoop will make. you need to loop the string around the wire to create the first part of the Dreamcatcher
5Choose decorative elements. The oldest dream catchers did not have decorative features, but in more recent years feathers and beads have been woven into the web to represent different elements of life.
- A hanging feather is a symbol of air, which we cannot live without. It is said that the stirring of a dream catcher's feather means that a dream has passed through the circle. Feathers from owls, which represent wisdom, and eagles, which represent courage, have been commonly used, but it is now illegal to use feathers from these endangered birds. Faux feathers may be used in their place.
- Gemstones, or faux gemstone beads, may be used to represent the four directions: north, south, east and west. These beads can be strung between the weaving.
- Choose colors and stones that have personal meaning to you.
Making the Hoop
1Shape the hoop. Place the willow or grapevine into a bowl of warm water. Allow it to soak for about half an hour, until it is supple and can bend without breaking. Shape the vine into a circle, making several loops so that your hoop will be strong. Use a twist tie to fasten the hoop in three places so that it keeps its shape, and let it dry completely.
- Press the hoop between two heavy books to ensure that it dries completely flat.
- If you're using a wooden or metal hoop, skip to the next step.
2Wrap the hoop. Paint some tacky glue along one tip of the suede thong. Press it against the hoop. Use one hand to hold the end in place as it dries, and use the other hand to start wrapping the thong around the hoop. Continue wrapping the hoop until the entire hoop is wrapped tightly in suede.
- Each loop of suede should be tightly wrapped and touching the adjacent loop of suede, but the loops should not overlap.
- The very last loop should slightly overlap the beginning piece of thong. Take the end of the suede and insert it under the second to last loop, forming a half-stitch to secure the thong in place.
3Make a hanging loop. Take the loose piece of the thong and shape it into a loop that juts out vertically from the top of the hoop. Keeping the loop in place, use the end of the thong to make a knot at the base of the loop. Pull it tight, then use a scissors to cut off the last dangling piece of thong.
Weaving the Web
1Weave the first row. Begin by tying one end of the string in a knot at the base of the hanging loop. Working clockwise, stretch the string to a spot a few inches down the hoop and loop it around the hoop. Stretch the string a few inches to the right and loop it around the hoop again. Continue making loops that are evenly spaced apart until you reach the beginning.
- If your hoop is 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter, the traditional method is to make 8 loops around the hoop.
- The thread between the looped peaks should be slightly loose. It will be pulled tight as you continue weaving.
2Continue weaving the web. Take the end of the string and weave it under the loop created between the first and second looped peaks. Make a "hitch" by using the thread to make a loop over the loose string. After making the first hitch, make another hitch at the thread between the second and third knots. Continue weaving the thread in this manner until you have made a hitch at the thread between every knot.
- Each hitch should fall at the exact midpoint of the thread between the knots.
- As you weave, pull the thread snug, but not too tight.
- After making the first row of hitches, continue weaving the thread between the new segments you have created and making a hitch in the middle of each one. The circle you weave will become smaller and smaller. As it becomes smaller, pull the thread tighter and tighter.
- If you desire, add a few beads or gemstones to the dreamcatcher as you weave. Space them out randomly or create a pattern.
Finishing the Dreamcatcher
1Secure the web. When you have woven the web down to a tiny circle in the middle, tie the end of the thread over the place where you would have made the final hitch. Make a double knot to ensure it won't come undone. Pull it tightly and snip off the end.
2Add a hanging feather. If you wish to add an ornamental feather or two, tie a new piece of string securely around the base of a feather. Tie the other end of the feather to the center of the dreamcatcher over one of the hitches in the center circle. Use a double knot to make sure it's secure. Snip off the dangle thread on either end.
- You can add beads to the string after one end has been tied to the base of the feather, before you secure it to the dreamcatcher.
- You can wrap the base of the feather in suede if you want to hide the knotted string. Brush the end of a piece of the suede thong with tacky glue. Hold it to the stem of the feather to let it dry for a minute. Wrap the stem of the feather, then trim the suede and glue the end to the base of the feather.
3Hang the dreamcatcher. Place the dreamcatcher near your bedroom window. With the first rays of sunlight, all bad thoughts that entered your mind during the night should disperse. Only good thoughts will be entering your mind for the day.
If I put a peacock feather in a dream catcher, is that good or bad?wikiHow ContributorThe placement of a peacock feather is not a bad thing because if it is of the earth and it is special to you. An odd superstition surrounds the peacock feather due to its looking like an eye (the evil eye), a superstition that arose in earlier times without any basis and of no relevance to dreamcatchers. Moreover, the dreamcatcher is a personal thing to you and what you choose to add to it reflects your meaning, not a bunch of superstitions created by others.
What other feathers can I add besides the owl feather?wikiHow ContributorYou can add different types of feathers from craft store, such as duck, goose, or peacock.
Can I use any color of beads, and if not, what are the best colors to use?wikiHow ContributorYou can use any color of beads that you want. The best colors to use are earth tones, including different shades of brown, orange, and dark yellow.
Where is the best place to hang it up?wikiHow ContributorThe best places to hang it up are above your bed (to catch the bad dreams straight from your mind) and on a window.
I was wondering if using sea shells would be alright making a dream catcher?wikiHow ContributorSea shells are fine to use, as long as you have made sure there are no little animals living inside them. You can drill a small hole in the spot you want in the shell and thread it through with the string you used to make the dream catcher. You can use them instead of feathers.
Can I use other materials instead of a feather?wikiHow ContributorYes! You can use other materials such as string with attached beads, ribbons, or thin strips of fabric.
How does a dream catcher catch a bad dream when it is just hanging there?wikiHow ContributorBad dreams would be caught in the web. As the first rays of the morning light hit the dream catcher, the bad dreams would disappear. Children sleeping under a dream catcher would thus be protected from nightmares.
Can I use natural feathers, like the feathers that I find in my backyard?wikiHow ContributorYes, you can. It brings the same effect of chi air and also catches bad dreams and thoughts.
Are Blue Jay feathers bad?wikiHow ContributorBlue Jay feathers aren't necessarily 'bad,' but they are legal to the USA. They are native to North America/Canada area, so they are okay to use on your dreamcatcher.
|Dreamcatcher - How to make a dream catcher with some yarn, beads, twine, thread and some creativity|
- Be sure to handle your dreamcatcher with care and it will last you many years.
- Add more feathers and beads to make the happy thoughts stronger.
- Experiment! Use vibrant colors and unique feathers and beads and you don't need to use natural resources.
- Try adding small bells in the web it is for good luck.
- Make sure your string is strong so your dream catcher doesn't break.
- Dream catchers can also be made in the shape of a heart, which represents love.
- Adults should use strong fibers to reflect their adult dreams and pursuits.
- At dawn, look for the miracle of the sunrise, as it is captured and sparkling in the morning dew of a web.
- The diameter should be around 3 to 8in. If there are 8 loops touching the hoop, it represents spider legs; if there are 7 loops on the knot, it represents the 7 prophecies.
- Dreamcatchers made for children should be made with fibers that eventually disintegrate, symbolizing the fleeting quality of youth. A willow hoop, held together with sinew, will eventually dry and collapse.
- Some Native Americans consider the Dream Catcher to be sacred. Children and adults made them too sell to tourists for extra income. If you make them with children, you could read a book to them about their history and the heritage of the people who made them.
- Make your dream catcher funky and cool and use more than one type of coloured string.
- For the non-superstitious bunch- use curtain rail hoops for the outer.
- Dreamcatchers may also be made in the shape of a teardrop, as is customary in Canada and the Northeastern US.
Things You'll Need
- Red willow reed, grapevine, twig from an olive tree, or a metal or wooden hoop
- Suede lacing
- Waxed nylon string, embroidery thread, or faux sinew
- Beads or gemstones
In other languages:
Italiano: Creare un Acchiappasogni, Español: hacer un atrapasueños, Deutsch: Einen Traumfänger herstellen, Русский: сделать ловушку снов, 中文: 制作捕梦网, Français: fabriquer un capteur de rêves, Português: Fazer um Filtro de Sonhos, Nederlands: Een dromenvanger maken, Čeština: Jak vyrobit lapač snů, Bahasa Indonesia: Membuat Dreamcatcher, 日本語: ドリームキャッチャーを作る
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 1,823,260 times. | <urn:uuid:416fd3a1-7890-4644-aa94-34c7b72e4837> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Dreamcatcher | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904877 | 2,833 | 2.765625 | 3 |
In which Scrabble dictionary does NEOLITHS exist?
Definitions of NEOLITHS in dictionaries:
- noun -
a stone tool from the Neolithic Age
noun - an ancient stone implement
There are 8 letters in NEOLITHS:
E H I L N O S T
Scrabble words that can be created with an extra letter added to NEOLITHS
All anagrams that could be made from letters of word NEOLITHS plus a
Scrabble words that can be created with letters from word NEOLITHS
8 letter words
7 letter words
6 letter words
5 letter words
4 letter words
3 letter words
2 letter words
Images for NEOLITHSLoading...
SCRABBLE is the registered trademark of Hasbro and J.W. Spear & Sons Limited. Our scrabble word finder and scrabble cheat word builder is not associated with the Scrabble brand - we merely provide help for players of the official Scrabble game. All intellectual property rights to the game are owned by respective owners in the U.S.A and Canada and the rest of the world. Anagrammer.com is not affiliated with Scrabble. This site is an educational tool and resource for Scrabble & Words With Friends players. | <urn:uuid:41486afe-f7be-4b91-995f-4731391cea1b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.anagrammer.com/scrabble/neoliths | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902192 | 277 | 2.53125 | 3 |
BE RELATED &c. adj.; have a relation &c. n.; relate to, refer to; bear upon, regard, concern, touch, affect, have to do with; pertain to, belong to, appertain to; answer to; interest.
ASSOCIATE, connect; bring into relation with, bring to bear upon; draw a parallel; link [See Junction].
RELATIVE; correlative [See Correlation]; relating to &c. v.; relative to, in relation with, referable or referrible to; belonging to &c. v.; appurtenant to, in common with.
RELATED, connected; implicated, associated, affiliated; allied, allied to; collateral, connate [rare], cognate, congenerous, connatural, affinitive, paronymous; en rapport [F.], in touch with.
APPROXIMATIVE, approximating; proportional, proportionate, proportionable; allusive, comparable, equiparable [obs. or rare].
RELEVANT (apt) [See Agreement]; applicable equiparant; in the same category [See Class]; like [See Similarity].
RELATIVELY &c. adj.; pertinently [See Agreement].
THEREOF; as to, as for, as respects, as regards; about; concerning &c. v.; anent; relating to, as relates to; with relation to, with reference to, with respect to, with regard to; in respect of; speaking of, à propos [F.] of; in connection with; by the way, by the by; whereas; for as much as, in as much as; in point of, as far as; on the part of, on the score of; quoad hoc [L.]; pro re natâ [L.]; under the head of (class) [See Class]; in the matter of, in re [L.].
Thereby hangs a tale.Taming of the Shrew
But thats another story.Kipling
A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots.Emerson | <urn:uuid:b56da4a2-55af-46c8-a9ef-b9a51b43b364> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bartleby.com/110/9.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.848096 | 441 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Son of Jacob and Leah (Gen. 29: 32), and ancestor of the tribe of Reuben. The story of Reuben, the first-born son whose behaviour (Gen. 35: 22) led to his losing the right attaching to that position (Gen. 49: 3–4) is in fact the story of the tribe told in the person of the founder: once pre-eminent, the Reubenites (Gen. 49: 4) lost their power to the tribes of Judah and Joseph. Reuben is mentioned first in the blessing of Moses (Deut. 33: 6) but in the Song of Deborah (Judg. 5: 15–16) Reubenites refuse to join the campaign against Sisera and are reproved. Settled in the Transjordan with the tribe of Gad (Num. 32: 33), the Reubenites may have become absorbed into that tribe (2 Kgs. 10: 33) until overcome by the Assyrian invasion of 732 BCE. | <urn:uuid:52903b43-1c42-4274-9743-65f039b73c4d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/print/opr/t94/e1619 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952413 | 206 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Researchers at MIT investigated how the brain processes subway maps:
The team put current transit maps through a computer model designed to mimic the brain’s ability—or lack thereof—to absorb a map’s information with just one glance. The resulting visualizations are called mongrels, and they look sort of like what you’d see if you squinted your eyes and focused on one part of the map. But they highlight where the maps confuse us most—what actually just doesn’t make it through to our brains—by showing how our peripheral vision perceives the colored lines and other data.
Streamlining routes makes maps easier to read:
By putting alternate versions of the New York and Boston subway maps through the computer model, the researchers showed that abstract versions of the maps (as opposed to geographically accurate versions) were more likely to be easily understood in a single, passing glance. You can see this in the researcher’s comparison of these two maps of Lower Manhattan’s subway system. The top two images are the maps; the bottom two are the mongrels … The current map on the left, dissolves into a confusing tangle. The more abstract one is almost as clear on the bottom image as the top one.
(Map via Ruth Rosenholtz, MIT) | <urn:uuid:b1f99a07-31f2-4ba2-9faf-094d0aad6703> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/11/07/building-a-better-subway-map/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928685 | 271 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Problem : Yesterday, the price of envelopes was $3 a box, and Julie was willing to buy 10 boxes. Today, the price has gone up to $3.75 a box, and Julie is now willing to buy 8 boxes. Is Julie's demand for envelopes elastic or inelastic? What is Julie's elasticity of demand?To find Julie's elasticity of demand, we need to divide the percent change in quantity by the percent change in price.
Problem : If Neil's elasticity of demand for hot dogs is constantly 0.9, and he buys 4 hot dogs when the price is $1.50 per hot dog, how many will he buy when the price is $1.00 per hot dog?This time, we are using elasticity to find quantity, instead of the other way around. We will use the same formula, plug in what we know, and solve from there.
Which of the following goods are likely to have elastic demand, and which are
likely to have inelastic demand?
Home heating oil
Problem : If supply is unit elastic and demand is inelastic, a shift in which curve would affect quantity more? Price more?Shifting the demand curve would affect quantity more, and shifting the supply curve would affect price more.
Problem : Katherine advertises to sell cookies for $4 a dozen. She sells 50 dozen, and decides that she can charge more. She raises the price to $6 a dozen and sells 40 dozen. What is the elasticity of demand? Assuming that the elasticity of demand is constant, how many would she sell if the price were $10 a box?To find the elasticity of demand, we need to divide the percent change in quantity by the percent change in price. | <urn:uuid:33c42173-891c-43ef-a762-464c09966e18> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sparknotes.com/economics/micro/elasticity/problems.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94648 | 362 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Corsica is a mountain in the sea. It represents a large variety of morphological landscapes.
With 8,722 square kilometres in area, it's the third largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily (25,000 km²) and Sardinia (24,000 km²). It measures 183 kilometres in length and 85 km in width. Closer to the Italian continent than the French continent (170 km) only 12 km separate it from Sardinia.
There are three geographical regions:
It's the largest region of Corsica, going from "Ile Rousse" to Solenzara around and including the centre, the "Balagna" and the south, mostly granite, it corresponds to the crystalline Corsica. It has the highest mountain summits on the island many over 2,000 meters : Monte Cintu 2710m, Monte Rotundu 2622m, Monte D'Oru 2389m, Monte Renosu 2352m, Monte Incudine 2136m.
This spinal chord corresponds to the ancient historical Corsican name of "Pumonti".
Essentially composed of "slate", its less steep than western Corsica and finishes at the San Petrone in the Castagnicia with 1,767m.
Narrow peninsula of 40 km which points towards the Golf of Genoa. Communication is easy thanks to the coast road and the two roads that connect the East to the West. The sea remains the main resource in this area. The slopes where transformed into terraces by man and are abandoned to the wild bush now.
We notice in spite of all this that the vineyards still surround the villages and viticulture still continues.
Limited to the North by the Golo, the South by the Tavignano, it represents several mountains cut by rivers and valleys. Since the 16th century its wealth has been the chestnuts .It’s a region composed by a multitude of small villages abandoned today.
The Eastern Plain
A flat land enriched by the waterfalls and rivers flowing from the heights of Castagnicia. It offers hills costal plains and flatlands ; to the North we notice the plain of Bastia dominated by the "Casinca" and the Southern plain of Aleria. This section is adapted to agriculture since its drainage in 1944 by the Americans ( to eliminate malaria).Today it welcomes intensive agricultural exploitation ( fruits and wines, but also sea resorts tourism development which has been improving since the 80’s).
The Central Furrow
Between the slaty Corsica and granite Corsica is found a depression from the mouth of Regina to the North West and ends in Solenzara to the South-East. Its altitude is never over 600 m. It deeply links the two mountainous Corsicas, acting as a meeting point and a privileged communication means on the route of "fium'orbu" for example the contact between the granite Corsica and the slate Corsica joins again at the Sampolo level, at the boundary of gorge and of l’Inzecca. Finally it must be mentioned the 2 chalk of small size, those of Saint Florent to the N.W and especially that of Bonifacio to the South which falls in front of Sardinia with its fantastic cliffs. | <urn:uuid:f14d44e5-6a0d-4b83-846a-7c8b461b7063> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.toute-la-corse.com/en/1-4-0-0-19/geography.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924998 | 670 | 2.515625 | 3 |
|Lord Seven Monkey was a 16th-century Mixtec priest and a descendant of the famous Lord Eight Deer. After the Spanish conquest, he was baptized and changed his name to that of the founder of the Dominican order, Santo Domingo de Guzmán. In 1544, he was accused of practicing idolatry with twenty sacred bundles that he and two other priests kept hidden in a chamber within the royal palace. The idols contained in the bundles represented the gods Saqhi or Lord Seven Earthquake and Qhuiyo or Lady Nine Reed among others. The trial proves to us that the Mixtec codices were more than anecdotal histories, they were holy books.
Lord Seven Earthquake is portrayed in Codex Nuttall as a hero sacrificing a Stone Man in the War of Heaven. Being descended from such divinities, Mixtec kings and queens were called "Yya" meaning either "lord" or "god."
While most Mixtec gods appear as distinct individuals, others seem to have shared attributes with their Eastern Nahua counterparts. Qhuiyo (Nine Reed) for example was worshipped by the Eastern Nahua as Ixquina. Qchi (Nine Wind) was Ehecatl Quetzalcoatl and Qcuañe (Nine Grass) was Cihuacoatl. These alternate cultural manifestations may have presided over comparable realms of spiritual affairs but it is also important to remember that they could be regarded as very different incarnations of the supernatural by the various peoples who worshipped them. | <urn:uuid:bafd3018-fd18-4855-ba60-27ae463c3ea9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.famsi.org/research/pohl/jpcodices/pohlmixtec9.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978444 | 309 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Interpretation of the COMPASS Score
How do Colleges Interpret COMPASS Scores
The COMPASS is an untimed test that gauges your ability to understand college level courses. It is a computer adaptive test, and is not a pass/fail test. Most colleges in the US use this test to understand whether students are college-ready, or if they need to take some preliminary courses to make the best use of the courses they attend.
The score is interpreted by different colleges differently. For some colleges, entry level criteria in the test should be met for admissions. This is required if the student has not met the criteria using the SAT or ACT scores.
The scoring scheme is computer adaptive, and so the score you achieve is not dependent on the number of questions you answer. The test will administer difficult questions if you consistently answer correctly. It will automatically put you through easier questions if you are not able to answer correctly. Thus, even the number of questions on the test varies from person to person.
The score is displayed immediately after the test. The score sheet is also called the "Standard Individual Report", and is divided into around four sections as explained below:
Section 1: General Information and Student Background
This section contains information such as the name of the student, the date and place of test and the answers provided by the student before administering the test such as GPA and high school background. This information is used so that colleges know how recent the score sheet is, and if a retest score is required. The criteria usually is that a score is valid for two years.
Section 2: Demographics and Help requested
This section is usually meant for colleges to understand the interest level of the student and whether he/she needs help such as scholarships or career guidance. These questions do not count towards the results, and are only meant for colleges to understand the profile base of students it admits.
Section 3: Program Choice
This section details the choice of the student. It is usually an indicator of the course the student is interested in, and is optionally answered by the student. The score sheet mentions this in order to make the results as relevant and comprehensive as possible.
Section 4: Assessment Results
Your main score is displayed in this section. The section might be divided into the number of tests you have administered. Most likely, the section is divided into Mathematics, Reading and Writing, which are the three sections of the test that are most popular. The score displays the results in "domains" and an "initial domain" or a "placement domain" is adjudged for the student. This is also an indicator of the courses that might be required to be taken by the student to become college-ready. Different colleges require different types of courses to be taken for the same placement domain. Chances are, if you are already college-ready, you might not be required to take any courses at all, and the recommendations are not mentioned against your score.
Some colleges have a high cut-off for admission to courses, and it makes sense to use the time left for your exams to score as high as possible. To give you an indication, a score of about 75 in the reading and writing section is considered as a cut-off in most colleges. The exact cut-off is sometimes mentioned on the college site. Thus, scoring high allows you to save time and tuition fees by avoiding courses which you can study on your own.
Another important reason to aim for a high score is if you are taking the exam for admission purposes. And to score high, understanding how the test is scored is the first step. Thus, it is helpful to go through the target college internet site or brochure to understand what cut off scores it has for its courses, and then set a target accordingly. Well planned study for the test is half the job done. Hope this article helped in explaining the relevance of high scores, and in answering how it should be interpreted. | <urn:uuid:d2c122fd-564e-4af8-811e-4f051921b348> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.testpreppractice.net/COMPASS/compass-score.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00139-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951136 | 804 | 3.25 | 3 |
Many parents find that their physical fitness habits take a hit when they have children. Pregnancy and caring for young children makes it difficult to exercise regularly. It is during this time that many parents are emotionally stressed and gain weight. Exercise provides emotional balance for many people, it is just difficult at this time to do it.
Many parents try to keep the exercises and routines that they had prior to having children. When this doesn’t work they quite often end up getting no exercise at all. The better strategy is to try to stay in shape using new routines so that when the children are older you can resume the exercise routines that you enjoy. There are a couple of strategies for making time to exercise when dealing with small children.
First try to set an example for the children. Children should see their parents exercising and having fun. This positive role modeling will help the child have a positive relationship with exercise in the future.
Exercise with your child. Depending on the child’s age, there are home exercise and dance videos for children. There is no rule that says parents can’t join in the fun. It may not be the type of exercise video a parent would like, but a routine of doing a kids exercise video is better than not exercising at all. Jogging strollers and parent and child martial arts, yoga and swim classes are other examples of ways to exercise with your child.
Think of cleaning as exercise. Find ways to make your cleaning chores aerobic. Try to see how much cleaning you can get done while a child naps. Racing a child to complete tasks, like picking up toys, can be very aerobic.
Park your car at the far end of parking lots. Finding an open space a long way from the doors of a store gives you a nice walk and burns some of the energy out of restless children before they get into the store.
Exercise while raising small children can be difficult- but it is not impossible. Exercise is one of the best self help wellness medicines available. Adding regular exercise can make it easier to deal with the stresses of child care, the trick is finding a way to make exercise a part of the life style of the whole family. | <urn:uuid:d3e6eeae-4df2-4c91-a11b-6db94988a111> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.examiner.com/article/exercise-and-childcare | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967182 | 446 | 2.546875 | 3 |
TERRY GROSS, host:
In the era of South African apartheid, poet Dennis Brutus was a leader of the movement that succeeded in getting South Africa expelled from the Olympics. He served 18 months in South Africa's notorious prison on Robben Island. Nelson Mandela was one of his fellow prisoners.
Brutus died Saturday at the age of 85. We're going to listen back to a 1986 interview with him. Here's a poem he read then called �Sirens, Knuckles, Boots.�
Mr. DENNIS BRUTUS (Activist; Poet): (Reading) The sounds begin again; the siren in the night, the thunder at the door, the shriek of nerves in pain. Then the keening crescendo of faces split by pain, the wordless, endless wail only the unfree know. Importunate as rain, the wraiths exhale their woe over the sirens, knuckles, boots, my sounds begin again.
GROSS: Dennis Brutus barely survived the consequences of his anti-apartheid activism. The government fired him from his job teaching high school English and banned him from participating in any political or social activities.
In 1963, he was arrested for breaking the ban. When he was released on bail, he fled to Mozambique. That country's government returned him to South African custody. Since no one knew that he had been forcibly returned, he felt the only way to let people know was to stage an escape in a public place, which is what he did. During that escape attempt, he was shot in the back by the police. After he was patched up, he was imprisoned on Robben Island for 18 months, then served a year under house arrest.
He signed an exit visa allowing him to leave the country. He moved to the U.S. in 1970. When I spoke with him, he told me about the aftermath of being shot during his attempted escape. The bullet went straight through his body.
Mr. BRUTUS: It entered my back and came out of my chest, and had penetrated the intestines and just missed the heart, which was very serious. I wasn't sure I was going to survive. I remember the man who shot me Sergeant Helberg(ph) saying to me as I lay on the sidewalk on the Main Street in Johannesburg, just outside the Anglo-American Corporation, which is the great mining conglomerate. And I lay on the sidewalk and Sergeant Helberg said to me, anyway, Brutus, I hope you survive. And I say, well, I hope so too. And, in fact, I was taken to a hospital and then operated on after that.
GROSS: It's almost surprising that you were given good enough medical treatment to survive after that.
Mr. BRUTUS: Yes. In fact, it's just possible that they lost control of the situation at that time. And so settled into the normal routine, yeah, here's a man who was shot, you take him to a hospital, you operate on him and that's it. You know, you try and save his life.
There are some complications. The ambulance that came for me, for instance, this was so macabre that men got out in uniform and they took out a stretcher and they looked at me and they put their stretcher back and they got back in the ambulance and they drove off. And I said to Helberg who was beside me, why are they leaving? I was very alarmed. And he said, well, Brutus, you wouldn't want them to lose their job, would you? This is an ambulance for whites, and so you'll have to wait for the black ambulance to come along.
And then when it did come, six members of the police got into the ambulance with me and sat there with notebooks poised and started questioning me about people that they should contact on my behalf. But clearly, this was in an effort to get leads. And then perhaps the most Kafkaesque part of it was when the doctors started operating, the police insisted on being in the operating theater.
And the doctors protested and said, well, look, you're covered with germs, you got to be sterile. We can't have you here. So they said, well, hold it and they went off and came back all masked and in gloves and covered boots and whatnot, and they stood there at the table. And the doctors then said, well, we can't work with you standing around us. It's impossible. And they refuse to leave. And so, I sat up and said that I think these men are hoping to get a statement out of me perhaps under anesthetic.
So perhaps I should make a statement now and then they would leave you to get on with the work. So they agreed. And they took out their notebooks. And I said, well, I regret nothing. I would do this again if necessary because I think this is an unjust system and that's all I intend to say. And then they withdrew to the doorway of the theater and stood there. But I think they gave up at that point.
GROSS: You were later taken to Robben Island, which is considered the most hellish of all the prisons in South Africa and it's supposedly unescapable. It's supposed to be escape-proof.
Mr. BRUTUS: Yes. Well, no one has ever escaped. That's true. Those who manage to get off the island were usually found dead. Their corpses will be washed up on the beach of Cape Town subsequently. No one, as far as I know, has succeeded in escaping and living. And, of course, I spent time there with people like Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, GovanMbeki, Ahmed Kathrada. We broke stones together. We were given rocks every day and a hammer and we broke rocks.
GROSS: Could you describe the prison a little bit and why it is so unescapable.
Mr. BRUTUS: Well, it's heavily guarded, heavily fortified. The wardens were all white, the prisoners are all black. Automatic rifles, barbed wire, sentry posts, and helicopters would circle the island. And in fact when I got there, I was part of a span(ph), this colored team that had to carry rocks out of the sea and up the beach to build a wall around the island.
And, in fact, one of my poems deals with that because I was so covered with bruises and I was beaten while I was working that I became a kind of spectacle. And every evening when we strip, we were required to stand naked outside the cells and be searched. The wardens would come along and inspect my bruises and I felt a little like a freak in the circus, a two-headed calf or a bearded lady or a tattooed lady, as I call it. So perhaps I should just read it at this point.
(Reading) For a while I was the tattooed lady of the prison, and wardens would come to our section and get me to strip and stare and whistle in mingled pleasure and horror at the great purple bruise that ran from my neck down my back, from my neck to my thighs in a purple mass. What was I then? Mute, enduring reproach, heroic endurer, Christianly hero or submissive fool? What was I then that I cannot now imagine, cannot now judge.
GROSS: While you were in Robben Island, you are prohibited from writing anything that anyone would be interested in publishing.
Mr. BRUTUS: Oh, yes. Although, in fact, much of that took place after I was released in 1965. But in prison, I was allowed one letter every six months, one letter in, one letter out. And, of course, in between I was not permitted any paper or pencils. So you simply didn't write. We would sometimes steal the lead or the graphite out of a pen or pencil and break it up and conceal it in the mats that we slept on on the concrete floor. So I did some writing on toilet paper, but this was discovered by guards and destroyed.
GROSS: Robben Island had a mix of political prisoners like yourself and people who were there on criminal offenses. Did you mix it all and was there any attempt to politicize the criminals?
Mr. BRUTUS: There were - when I arrived there, there were - I became one of 1,100 political prisoners. And in addition, we have 200 who were there for multiple murders, multiple rapes. The government described them as the scum of the prison system or the dregs of the prison system. They were the worst in the country. And these 200 were then put in charge of the political prisoners. They took us to work. They gave us our food. They beat us up. So, mix is probably not the right word. Often, they eat our food as well. They were due to deliver it to us in our cells each evening, but if they chose to, of course, we went without it.
GROSS: There is another poem I'd like to ask you to read about how certain positive emotions can persist and endure in spite of the oppression of apartheid.
Mr. BRUTUS: This is an early one, written in a ghetto in South Africa and, in a sense, talking about survival in the ghetto. And also at the time when my language was a lot more complex, I think in prison, when I was able to review my own work in solitary - because one needs to keep your mind busy there - I settled for a much simpler and more direct vocabulary and form of communication. But here, I'm also dealing with a challenge of diction because I'm trying to use highly political language. In a poetic manner, I'm trying to turn slogans into lyrics, if you like. And so, there's a kind of intriguing challenge to the craft of poetry as well as a statement, a political statement.
(Reading) Somehow we survive and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither. Investigating searchlights rake our naked unprotected contours. Over our heads, the monolithic Decalogue of fascist prohibition glowers and teeters for a catastrophic fall. Boots club the peeling door. But somehow we survive severance, deprivation, loss. Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark, hissing their menace to our lives. Most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror, rendered unlovely and unlovable. Sundered are we and all our passionate surrender, but somehow tenderness survives.
GROSS: South African poet and anti-apartheid activist Dennis Brutus recorded in 1986. He died Saturday at the age of 85. | <urn:uuid:3f3a8f24-5392-4d1a-9e72-d9d235e5a9c2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=122020269 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988079 | 2,226 | 2.515625 | 3 |
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